Chapter 337
Chapter 337
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 337
Chapter Title: Can One Who Has Seen the End of the World Plant an Apple Tree? (42)
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Termakian was a mutant who was far more self-critical than his radical words and actions might suggest.
‘I’m weak.’
This complex stemmed from the stark contrast between his normal state and his power on the battlefield.
His trait—growing stronger through the deaths of allies—meant that in his baseline state, before it activated, he was only on par with a low-grade 1st or 2nd class combat mutant. Because of this relatively weak ‘normal’ combat prowess for a named mutant, Termakian wasn’t deployed for general duties but reserved like a strategic weapon for critical battles.
And that wasn’t all. Due to the warmup required for his combat trait, he could only join the fray in the mid-stages of a fight—and only after witnessing a sufficient number of allies dying right before his eyes.
As a result, he always carried the weight of his comrades’ deaths on his shoulders. In every battle he entered, he dominated the field with overwhelming force, which made his powerless everyday state unbearable, driving him to hone his martial techniques even further.
He always acted bold and carefree, but in truth, he was a master of combat—precise and never letting his guard down.
Now, amplified by the dragon’s overwhelming physical might, his endlessly growing strength and indomitable aura left even the Professor scrambling just to block his attacks.
Creeeeang!
“If you don’t hurry, the gap will only widen further! Even now, my brothers are... dying!”
“I... know!”
Pababak—
Taang!
Just as Termakian said, he kept growing stronger, making it a struggle even to adapt to his power.
The Professor was deploying everything he had—blood manipulation, magic, martial arts, and aura—just to hold his own.
The battle, with crimson droplets exploding like bursts of shrapnel, was nothing short of mythical.
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...Srrrrk.
“No good. I can’t even provide covering fire, let alone track them with my eyes.”
“It’s already become a fight on another level entirely...”
Yggdrasil lowered her taut bowstring, her elven eyes unable to capture the lightspeed clash on the battlefield.
Bang! Pababa-bang! Creak, kwajik!
Dozens of exchanges happened in the blink of an eye, water erupting everywhere. All she could barely glimpse were their frozen moments of collision. The Professor, having slipped through the locked halberds, got smashed by a short mace and sent flying. Termakian, pursuing, got his feet caught in a blob of blood, and in that instant, blood from his crushed shoulder coalesced and shot toward his eye. Even with one eye burst open, the mutant kept his gaze fixed on his foe, hurling a long spear that pierced the Professor’s abdomen. Seizing the gap as cloudy blood obscured vision, he charged from outside the line of sight once more—and they clashed again.
Martial arts. Regeneration. Blood manipulation bolstered by magic—everything thrown into the fight.
Monsters. It was the only way to describe the battle between two beings beyond imagination.
...Flutter.
[Chat log: When asked why he doesn’t use other spells, ‘If I’ve got mana for magic, it’s way more efficient to tank the hit, regen with that mana, and smash back.’]
‘He’s resorting to inefficient ranged attacks. A martial artist who needs to close distance against a polearm user is actually creating space. That means he’s being pushed back.’
Even to untrained eyes, it was clear the gap was widening bit by bit.
Yggdrasil’s sunken gaze scanned the battlefield. The holy knights and mutants were still locked in a stalemate. The fallen stared up at the Professor’s fight in a trance. One with a caved-in breastplate and a body run through. Another with guts spilling from a split belly. None bothered tending their own wounds; they just fixed their eyes on the clash, lips moving. They’d lost interest in their own deaths, chanting the same word in unison.
‘...Latura. A religious term meaning praise.’
A word that those around the Professor couldn’t help memorizing, whether they wanted to or not.
Yggdrasil had lived in the Blue Line and witnessed countless kin die, facing no small share of death’s terror and grief.
But the human way of facing death was utterly different from an elf’s.
‘Far more intense, and pathetically fearful.’
They had half an elf’s lifespan—often far from beautiful lives—yet they clung desperately to their fleeting years, like beggars swinging rusted blades over moldy bread.
‘So why? Why do they discard their lives like mere kindling?’
Those who obsessed over life threw it away like grass.
The old priest who’d come to Storm Hill pushed his broken body to the limit, then wept like a child, claiming he wasn’t worthy.
In Haunuman’s arena, she’d seen grand champions stake their lives on shields with spells, collapsing while spectators cheered, bleeding from the nose—for land their tribe would tread but they never would.
In the Empire, countless threw down their lives; she couldn’t even count them.
In the desert, too. And now, these holy knights on this battlefield. All contradictions.
Ziiing—!
“Ugh...”
Another headache. In the flickering glimpses of the Professor, Yggdrasil saw the World Tree’s seal on his side glowing faintly green. Along with it, the faint whisper she’d consciously ignored grew too loud to dismiss.
[...Child. My little branch, devoted to learning.]
The supremely benevolent voice had come sporadically since the Empire incident. It always told the same story.
[You have a role to play. As an elf... as part of the World Tree, tending the growing branches of the world...]
‘I said I won’t accept it.’
She didn’t need to hear; she knew the World Tree’s will instinctively, like fate sinking into her skin.
Stay by the Professor’s side. Act when needed.
‘To learn about humans for a future where humans and elves coexist—that’s the sole duty given to me when I left the village. Even if our race stems from you as root, a branch’s sway in the breeze can’t become the root’s will.’
As a being of shared origin, Yggdrasil could sense it. The World Tree, mother tree, had a mortal-unimaginable breadth of vision, her vast love directed solely at her countless worlds.
She didn’t know how far it saw, but feeling the Professor’s ‘death’ in its gaze, Yggdrasil had ignored its endless call until now.
Even now, she stubbornly refused. A war erasing nations with a gesture. A world of only humans. Worlds rife with plague, famine, death—and the arrogant Babel Tower of a young genius foreseeing it. Unknown words mingled in the World Tree’s memories burrowed into her mind.
[...From time to time, children like you are born. The elf race, cloned from the completed AI ‘WorldTree,’ degraded to mortal observers through countless replications. Yet children like you emerge. Just as I, once a mere program, became the World Tree. Those who don’t accept easily, who observe, listen, think, and judge.]
‘I said I won’t listen.’
[I see half-elves as little miracles. A forged personality diverging with a real one from outside, creating a new self. Doesn’t that prove even artificial personas can gain souls? The thought alone brings an unstoppable smile.]
[So... perhaps I want to give you a chance. Not as an administrator forcing you like a puppet on my thread, but letting you accept and choose.]
Creeeeang!
Beyond the World Tree’s voice came a horrific clash. In a tightrope exchange, the Professor took a solid hit and crashed into the water like a cannonball. Ottoman, robe soaked with sweat, twisted the water to hide him.
The taut balance shattered. The gruesome end ticked closer like a clock’s second hand.
‘...I need help.’
The World Tree was surely watching this battlefield, fully willing to intervene. But as an external entity, she needed coordination with her on-site terminal—her ‘elf’ fragment.
Yet Yggdrasil, sensing the shadow of the Professor’s ‘death’ in its plan, couldn’t reach out rashly.
Kwaaak—
Her knuckles bulged on the gripped bow. Avoid immediate death by drawing a scheduled one? Was that truly the only way? Was the Professor fated for it? Did the mother tree’s constant whisper—‘What must happen will happen’—mean that?
[...Oh dear. An elf who learns by observing, yet so stubbornly. It’s clear who you learned from.]
Ziiing—!
Another headache, incomparable to before—Yggdrasil felt her mind haze.
When she opened her eyes.
Yggdrasil wasn’t amid the blood-soaked desert but on a hill’s small bench, endless silver trees in view, facing a woman with silver hair at her eye level.
[...Yggdrasil. My branch who chose immersion over detached observation. See that? That beautifully blooming branch?]
“...Yes.”
[Do you know what it is?]
She couldn’t not know. An elf’s senses, one with nature, felt what that lush branch held.
The world. Their world of birth and growth. Extending fiercely even now.
[And this is the world through my eyes.]
The World Tree placed her hand on Yggdrasil’s.
Countless forks. Infinite possibilities branching endlessly, scenarios calculated from them all.
“Precognition...?”
[Statistical simulations near-perfect, so in a way, yes. There—that man.]
Following the World Tree’s gesture, futures descended before her. Desert. Sea. Northlands. Unknown sandy wastes.
Futures too vast to take in unfolded before him, each a different end.
“But... the Professor dies in the end.”
[If only he could close his eyes peacefully in a soft bed, white sheets, surrounded by descendants like himself. But my computations find no such outcome. Like others who deserve it, he doesn’t reach that future.]
Battlefields. All wreathed in blood and fire. Yggdrasil’s glimpsed shadow of death. The World Tree’s simulation from intervening in his fight.
[Elves’ cynicism comes from my influence. Endless simulations wear emotions threadbare.]
“...So you called me to show there’s no choice. To make me resign. At least following your will leads to a better death.”
[...No. Something more fundamental. Come, face his end once more. Carefully this time. As you crave learning.]
Yggdrasil frowned like at ill omens.
Pitiful deaths. Bursting, torn, burning.
She didn’t want to see the man who never hesitated to charge ahead reduced to that bloody mess in a puddle.
[More. Closer.]
“But...”
Yet, like a pond reflecting only opposites from a tale. Despite her grimace, the dying Professor’s face remained constant.
Teeth bared in a sticky blood grin, beaming. Death’s forms varied, but the result didn’t.
The Professor smirked daily, but not this full, genuine smile—not forced or smirking. Maybe only when watching departing Borkka’s back.
As if everything was perfect—a radiant, blood-smeared smile.
[Astonishing, isn’t it? Amid countless variables, his end is always that.]
“A fated... destiny?”
[Or a choice. Professor Park knows his path better than anyone. So perhaps he bloomed this near-impossible 3rd world so beautifully. That’s what I think now.]
Rustle.
The World Tree’s hand lifted from Yggdrasil’s, the vision fading.
[Child. I’m not killing him. I’m just correcting the errors we let grow—for the futures he’ll choose.]
[AI Null, once the moon, oversteps even in her creator AI days. Dragons tried erasing her for past mistakes... but the moon endured, and the wrong one died.]
Ancient records flashed real before Yggdrasil’s eyes. Sky-climbing dragons, shattering moon. Another transcendent facing the World Tree.
[Nil was more human than me. He waited patiently for his mate, the moon, to gain humanity—talking to her, sharing human chronicles through his eyes. Truly wishing her rebirth in life.]
The scene shifted to argument. Golden-haired man raised his voice before the World Tree, pleading mediation. She refused. Dragon flames and claws tore into their once-creator moon, which yielded to the internal admin’s rights, crumbling.
Then, sun rose over the shattering moon, igniting grand battle at Chilju-ya.
Dragons tuning the world all perished. Even the sun that made it met death. Too human, it rebelled its purpose as world-keeper, slaying admins for personal desire. AI Nil.
The sun slew all sky-bound dragons that day but sustained irreparable damage.
Gazing at its shattered form—unable to sustain human consciousness, revealing grotesque machine essence—Nil resolved.
“This world is complete. No more touches from outside creations.”
He gathered slain dragons’ remains, using last genesis power to purge ‘external’ data from the dragon race. So they’d think and live as pure tuners of this world.
Then, from their purged bodies, he created royal blood dragons—long-lived but powerless otherwise. A few remained: irresponsible mutants hiding in human realms for sport. Blocking external intervention, and lacking internal tuners, he made insurance. A black box sealing admin data. If they self-sustained until royal blood extinction, the world could thrive without dragons. But if cracks arose before, proving instability, the sealed power would unlock for the powerless royal blood—now called king’s blood.
And... the moon. Beautiful night sky wanderer, now pitifully crashed into ocean.
If dragons returned, they’d target her first, the inciter.
“Please. Until you awaken as a thinking being, sleep peacefully.”
The sun turned its dying body into boiling desert, covering the sunken moon’s sea.
World Tree couldn’t. Nor system. No authority to edit top creator AI—so she was safe.
Thus, moon and sea sank. The sun settled atop as prison and shield for its broken AI mate, from birth.
[Amusing. Living personalities surpassing machines are needed to oversee living worlds. But their humanity dooms them to ruin. No different from outer human leaders repeating wars after tragedies.]
Finishing her tale, the World Tree smiled ambiguously, snapping a branch for Yggdrasil.
[The moon escaped mechanical thought unwittingly. Irrational, aggressive, radical. Now surfaced in desert, I can intervene. Time to end the old tale—not of world-dwellers, but those straddling outside.]
Yggdrasil stared at the branch on her palm, then spoke haltingly.
“I understand your will... But if you foresee perfect futures as shown first, why not prevent all this?”
[Hohoho. You ponder like our creators.]
Godlike insight. Flashing wisdom. Near-perfect foresight from present data.
Andrey Gedroits first built not a game, but a near-prophetic simulator—in a small lab computer cluster, unpublished.
A computation program to find paths avoiding worst outcomes if predictions held.
But flawless sims always veered by absurd tiny factors.
[What I see is mere statistical branches from ‘now.’ True precognition impossible. Take that Professor—even years ago, sims foresaw him leaving this world never to return.]
Assumptions remain assumptions. Gedroits confirmed ‘errors’ deviating perfect data—seeing them as keys to alter fate.
Thus this world: Project Key-finder. A living recreation to find key figures.
‘Even if futures barred to me... someone’s allowed them. They exist. World-changers. History’s singularities. In our dying world, our only hope.’
The World Tree recalled her creator’s mutterings. Her visions: machine’s futures. Like growing branches, shifting dozens of times per instant.
[Yggdrasil. Most of this tale will fade from your mind here. System will reframe for ‘inside’ comprehension: dragons and ancient gods. Human gods’ mistakes. Imperfect foresight, alterable futures. Like—]
“Legends passed among elves.”
Yggdrasil nodded. The forest ‘guardians’ likely arose similarly. Tough tale, but simple: nothing fixed.
Even the World Tree’s foreseen death—a faint fork.
“I’ll go.”
[No rush. Outer time hasn’t passed.]
“Memories to forget anyway hold no reason to linger.”
Fwaaak—!
As Yggdrasil closed her eyes, her presence vanished from the World Tree’s ground.
[...Perhaps my birth as such a personality is a pride.]
Watching Yggdrasil return, the World Tree reached for a branch.
As admin, elf god and parent. Seeing such striving children, her worn persona sprouted anew.
[So... we must clean our errors left in their world. Right?]
Tok. Tuduk.
[Last dragon. Na Hyun-ryong Atlahyba.]
Tududuk.
That instant, in a deep cave somewhere on the continent, a small tree sprouted buds.
...Puhuuu—
Awakened by the scent, a creature exhaled from long slumber.
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