Chapter 325
Chapter 325
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: Can the One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (30)
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“The mutes are gone.... Did we, did we win....? Is everyone okay? Anyone hurt?”
Ottoman, barely clinging to consciousness, suddenly felt the resistance from the swelling waves vanish.
The sharp scrape of metal on claws, the screams and shouts—all had faded.
As the din of battle died away, leaving only low groans in the air, Ottoman scanned his surroundings with blurred vision and realized his companions, who should have been at his side, were all gone.
“Where is everyone.... Notum, Idrasil....”
“They’re up above.”
“Ah, up there....”
He’d been imagining the worst amid the blood and carnage when a calm voice from overhead finally eased his mind.
Eager to rise, he found his strength spent—his legs trembled, refusing to hold him.
“Damn.... Mind giving me a hand....?”
“Sorry. I can’t help you right now.”
“....You hurt? How bad? Notum knows a bit of healing magic, and Lakshasha seemed decent at surgery....”
No reply came to the frail old man’s plea. Clutching an abandoned sword at his feet like a cane, Ottoman crawled toward the deck.
When he finally hauled himself up the stairs and peered out, the sight that met his eyes was utterly unexpected.
Nullak’s flagship clung desperately to its shape, smeared head to toe in human gore.
Nullak himself had tumbled from his palanquin, one hand clutching his torn abdomen, the other staunching the blood from his missing leg at the thigh.
And at the heart of the carnage stood a small tree, brimming with incongruous vitality.
Idrasil gripped a branch atop it with fierce eyes. Notum, eyes bloodshot and gasping, pressed both hands to the roots.
“W-What in the world is....”
“Please. Don’t interrupt.”
Idrasil cut off the weary old man, yanking harder on the slender branch clutched in both hands.
Up close, it was a massive bow shaped like a tree. Her feet braced firmly on the trunk serving as the riser, her hands drew back the string-like vine.
“Hoo, grrr, uwoooo!”
“Notum, stay calm. If the tension slips, it’ll miss.”
“Grrr.... Those bastards, they took the woman....! The snake woman, the snake woman grabbed the desert woman—”
“Be cold. I told you. Clearly.”
“....Huff, huff!”
Notum settled under Idrasil’s icy tone, focusing on her spell. The natural bow, fed by the pooled blood, pulsed with growing life.
Kwaaaak—!
The elf’s eyes sharpened on her target as she drew the string taut.
The fallen dragon and armless Professor. The sinister creature emerging before them, the snake-like woman, and Lakshasha subdued by it.
A normal shot would be sensed by their monstrous perceptions. Given the enemy’s combat prowess and brutality she’d witnessed firsthand, failure meant the hostage’s death.
Idrasil didn’t rush. From what she’d gleaned of the man called Professor, he’d be the one to explode most violently in such a pinch.
He was an expressive human. His face often mirrored his words. During his talk with the enigmatic foe, his eyes hadn’t tracked the enemy. He was looking elsewhere.
Idrasil quashed her rising impatience and steadied her breath.
“....Hooo.”
She exhaled her stray thoughts with the breath. Focused solely on bow and target.
A vibration rumbled through her feet, sharpening the sniper’s instincts.
The tilting dragon. The enemies atop it swaying with it. As if waiting for this moment, Professor kicked off a scale at his toe and lunged forward, the snake woman curling into a cruel smile as if she’d known.
And the small monster in green fluid, leisurely taking it in.
Idrasil pinpointed the gap in that instant.
‘....There!’
-Pang!
The taut string snapped free.
The wind spirit’s arrow sliced through space, silent and unhindered, toward its mark.
Cleaving the searing air, threading the tilting warship’s masts, straight to the dragon’s slumped form.
Nigmi’s mocking smirk at the near-miss arrow twisted to shock, then horror.
Whiiiish—
Crack!
The root-like arrow pierced Nigmi’s hand and Phorcatus’s barrier, halting perilously close to his face.
“....Tch.”
The elf clicked her tongue at the halted shot. The troll shaman sprouted a new branch for the next arrow from her fingertips.
‘It didn’t hit the target, but it served its purpose.’
The startled snake woman blocked as the Professor severed the snakes sprouting from its right arm. She reached again, but Lakshasha, cloaked in a spray of spell-threads, couldn’t be pinned as before.
“The fight’s not over yet! What’s, what’s the situation?!”
To Ottoman’s alerted cry, Idrasil replied while drawing her string.
“The enemy has a hostage.”
“....Lakshasha. She’s already out of mana. What now....”
“She’s fine now.”
Idrasil eyed Lakshasha’s flayed palms from the first shot, aiming once more. Two more shots, without nerve damage.
“We have a hostage too. Now they’ll feel what we’ve felt.”
A sniper always targets weakness. Pure logic.
Not because of Lakshasha crumbling in real time, or the emotions it stirred. Probably.
****
One thing targeted.
‘Nigmi’s a lizardman-naga hybrid. Reads minds via racial trait.’
Phorcatus’s finger pointing down mockingly just before the doppelganger approached. My ambush timed to the dragon’s tilt—they’d read it via Nigmi’s trait.
‘Phorcatus vowed no carelessness against me. Mind-reading number games. They can’t lose.’
So he’d fed them the thoughts.
Let them read. It forced their actions to match mine.
Seeing threads clutched in Lakshasha’s bloodshot, shattered hand, the Professor stopped thinking.
As the dragon tilted with the doppelganger’s spawn, posture disrupted, lunging desperately as if to exploit it, Nigmi casually dodging the foreseen attack to crush Lakshasha mockingly—
-Skish!
Crack!
Lakshasha’s threads sliced her binding snakes.
I caught her plummeting form mid-charge, slamming the ground.
Her hand barred Phorcatus’s path before Nigmi could rage.
All simultaneous.
‘Sniper? ....Idrasil!’
Unforeseen aid. Lethal to frail Phorcatus, and a perfect counter to mind-reading, precog-like Nigmi—from range!
Even they hadn’t predicted it; they scrambled against the second arrow.
In the brief gap Idrasil bought, the Professor checked Lakshasha in his arms.
Her eyelids fluttered faintly, then she went limp.
‘Critical.’
No limb intact. Bones crushed by relentless pressure—muscles and organs inside were obvious.
How had she moved? She’d stabbed threads into her own body and reeled herself in. Insane.
Ruuuumble—
The doppelganger swelled, devouring the desert.
‘....No choice.’
Lakshasha in his arms, enemy commander before him. Prime chance, but she couldn’t survive more fighting.
Sinking footing in real time. Enemies could traverse sand; they couldn’t.
Too much at stake.
The Professor felt Phorcatus’s gaze.
“....”
[.....]
The grinning monster’s eyes read something in his.
One side offered proposal and assent. The other, rage and resignation.
Silent accord passed. The Professor broke the pointless standoff first.
“....Go.”
[Oh? You’re letting us? Charging like that could be fatal, you know?]
“Cut the crap and go. All that bluffing while shaking in fear of dying.”
[Eurm.... Thought I hid it well. Even I can’t help instinctual fear as a living thing. Snipers.... The top threat to commanders. Guess my field experience leaves gaps. Who’d have thought you had one hidden in your head too. Impressive, Father.]
Fucking bastard.
The clapping monster eyed the grinding-teeth Professor with regret, lips moving. Nigmi’s slit pupils snapped wide at the voice.
“....You’re leaving? Like this? Letting these vermin go—the ones who stabbed tree-roots into my hand?!”
[The tree-root kills me if it hits. If you can read incoming arrows from afar too, then do as you like, Nigmi.]
“Shaaak! Shaaaaak!”
[The girl’s got a temper.]
Nigmi flared cobra-like hood and flicked her tongue, glaring fiercely toward the arrow’s origin before hoisting Phorcatus, wrapping him in her coils, and diving into the sand.
‘Wary of snipers to the end.’
The waiting sandworm swallowed them. The last mutes vanished from the battlefield.
Before their presence fully faded, the Professor felt Phorcatus’s thought still lingering.
[....What. Exactly do you all want. Mutes.]
.
.
.
.
[Hahaha.]
Unfeigned laughter. As always, the monster answered faithfully.
[Same reason you struggle so, probably.]
[Same.... as me?]
[I like you, Professor. Park Professor. My father. You’re so genuine toward this world. More than that world tree bitch, even.]
Casually, Phorcatus spoke of reality, admins, world trees.
[How far.... No, how did you know?]
[One question at a time. You asked what we want? Simple reason. Survival. Like all life, we just want to live.]
[The rest.... A gift for Father. For your joy in exploration. If it’s too hard, bring a gift next time. Hm.... No fruit. That sniper’s head should do. Nigmi seems pretty pissed.]
[....Next time we meet, you die.]
[Hahaha. I’d planned to spare you again.]
[Ah, don’t get too comfy now we’re gone. Escape quick.]
[....Escape?]
[The doppelganger. Quicksand. Saw it coming; nearly got us too. Hahaha.]
Phorcatus’s thought faded with faint laughter.
Only then did the Professor recall what he’d sidelined amid rescuing Lakshasha.
How long since he’d used divine power?
Crunch, thud!
Colliding warship logs in the rapids answered, shattering Kauladi’s vessels.
****
Kwaaaaa—!
[Professor! Still there?! Hurry! The taboo’s out of control!]
[I know! But.... Can’t escape! You guys okay?!]
[Not okay! Wind sucking into the hole at its center—blowing that way too! Ship won’t advance!]
[Warships have rowers! We’ll try something—prep field meds! Potions! Bandages! Splints! Everything!]
[Uh.... We’re on the Dry Oasis! Not Nullak’s flagship!]
[Why there?!]
Enemies gone, crisis loomed.
What was this taboo’s quicksand? Beyond it, a black hole at center sucked sand voraciously.
Their warships plummeted; their little desert boat dragged to its heart.
The Professor rendezvoused with Ottoman’s group swiftly.
“Why are you on this?! Nullak’s crew’s gone—must’ve escaped from the edge!”
“Abandoned! Wounded Nullak used magic to toss us! ‘You know taboos well too,’ he said!”
“That.... Ugh! Damn pig bastard!”
Nullak had been consistently cunning and smart.
As a desert native, he knew taboos. His sharp mind instantly grasped who fueled this one.
White holy light battering the dragon. Warrior Saladin charging its core.
Unclear how much the taboo lumped in, so his whole crew.
A leader’s swift, wise call.
Though it doomed them.
As Notum tended Lakshasha with healing magic via the Professor’s careful handoff, the quicksand’s core neared relentlessly.
“Ottoman, any water left? That spell you used to blast mutes—could lift the ship and get us out.”
“Water aplenty.... But my mana’s dry.”
“....Water, aplenty?”
The Professor recalled Ottoman’s parched throat, wondering if delirium had set in. Lakshasha strained him; Ottoman collapsing too might break him.
“Yes. This place was an ocean, untold ages ago! No clue what turned that blue sea to scorching sands, but the desert holds endless water. It changes form, but never vanishes.”
“This was.... an ocean?”
Boom!
Crunch, grroan—
Amid crashing warships funneling into the quicksand, [ocean] lingered in the Professor’s eyes.
‘Oversized desert life. Land creatures can’t evolve that big under their weight—oceans allow it. Plausible. Explains the sand sea and mismatched ecosystem.’
‘That first sand shark. Ate a mute somewhere. Several catches like it. Lakshasha said no mute traces despite desert shadows everywhere.’
‘Legend. Legend....!’
Snap!
“That legend! You said it from the start! Moon sank, sun fell! Sank! Sank! Sun’s death everywhere—no word on the moon!”
Legend: Desert king coveted moon; ‘it sank below the waves, never to rise.’
Moon and sea. Moon and sea! Moon, sea!!!!
‘First Kauladi meet—he called it [sun’s power], molding sand freely!’
Fallen sun, its remains hurled to dragon lands. Where’d the remains go?
Ssshh—
The Professor scooped sand from Dry Oasis’s deck.
‘Here.’
Ancient dragons dropped the moon into the sea. Slowly, tides pulled by moon sank with it, exposing the dry seabed.
Then sun crashed atop. Shattered inferno became dust grains, blanketing the great desert.
The desert’s genesis. Born of two gods’ falls.
If the flowing sand sea was sun’s remains....
“Professor! Warship ahead!”
“....Whoa!”
Kwaang!
Brushing off a near-colliding ship, the Professor dashed below deck.
Crew from sailors to navigator, bosun, captain—all at oars, fighting the flow.
“Captain! Avery!”
“Damn it! Saladin! Get over here and row! Hold till taboo ends—we live!”
“Scrap that crap—turn the prow!”
“What?”
The Professor yanked sweat-soaked Avery from the helm, tucked under arm, and hauled to deck.
“See that?!”
“The taboo’s enforcer.... Biggest quicksand in your sailing life....”
“We’re going in!”
“C-Crazy?!”
“Stay and we all die! Don’t care if just me, but if taboo needs us all to end, it’s pointless death!”
Faint. Desperately faint chance. Only one.
Sun and moon. Ancient gods.
Taboo’s quicksand raged at holy power.
If sun remained as desert....
Where was moon, and doing what?
“C-Can’t.... I can’t....”
“A navigator whining?! Drift and we crush between warships! Only you can dodge!”
No escape anyway.
Alone, he could melt through sand sea. But the rest? Dragged in, done.
‘Then gamble!’
Captain and Professor locked eyes. Conviction blazed. Will to live burned.
Avery gripped the worn wheel.
Yes. If last voyage, not as rower in cramped hold—but navigator, captain!
Dry Oasis’s Captain Avery inhaled sand-laced air deep.
『Sail-hoooo!!』
Departure cry pierced warship chaos, clear to weary crew.
“No slacking—move! Worse than reefs ahead! Rip sails if needed—full tension! All shades out for turning power! Pad! Goolrain! Poles for manual flaps!”
“Uh, uh....”
“Move!”
“Yes, sir!”
Bewildered why mad captain, orders were absolute; muscle memory stirred ship every corner.
Little desert boat wove precariously through massive warships like rapids.
Thus, prow tilting down....
Ottoman, eyeing rope-clung crew, couldn’t resist asking the Professor tying spare sails.
“W-What’s down there to head— Aaaagh!”
Groooan—
At last, ship reached black abyss core, tilting forward, forward.
On chaos deck, rope-hung Professor declared with certain eyes.
“The sea. The ancient sea you spoke of, Ottoman! To the sunken sea—with the moon!”
“Wha, wh-why?! Why deliberately?!”
“Let it drag—we die anyway! More than that....”
Groan, screeeech—
“....Those bastards are there!”
Thud.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
“Uwaaaah!”
“Uwaaah!”
“Captain! Captaaaain!!!”
“Uwaaaaaah!!!!”
“Moooom!!!”
At last, naught below Dry Oasis plunged into endless depths.
Through shattered warship debris, endlessly, endlessly deep.
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