Chapter 321
Chapter 321
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 321
Chapter Title: Cradle's Collapse (6)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"See you later then."
"Yes, go on in. Just in case, but what we talked about among ourselves..."
"Hehe, of course. You think I wouldn't know something like that?"
"Haha. That's a relief. Folks from some places need everything spelled out for them."
After finishing the explanation, we exchanged some brief small talk, had dinner, and parted ways right after.
Unlike Bao, he caught on quickly, which was a relief.
'Next time, I should gather several people and explain all at once.'
Thankfully, it wasn't something I had to handle alone.
The spirits and Marronier were the key players in this process. I wasn't even necessary.
In Sugar's case, the other side had a favorable view of me, so I'd had no choice but to step in.
She'd handle things from here on out just fine.
'She'll... do well, right?'
Maybe it was because there were so many abnormal people around me.
Sometimes it was hard to trust others with tasks.
In that sense, I needed a more reliable comrade, and Sugar joining us was a huge relief.
I trusted that Sugar, with her sweet voice and ease at chatting even with strangers, would handle this flexibly.
'Chance of betrayal... practically zero.'
No matter how paranoid I got, I'd set some pretty stringent criteria.
Marronier's mental world.
The spirits' intuition for sensing emotions.
My gut feeling, baseless but with a decent hit rate.
Everything but the last one was highly reliable.
Mind reading and emotion sensing. The two most effective abilities for grasping someone's true nature were now in place.
"Am I being too suspicious?"
"Brother."
Sun, who had come out to see Sugar off with me, responded to my musing.
"What."
"Common sense says if they could hide it after all this, Flower would've conquered the world ages ago."
"They're on the verge of doing it right now."
"Oh, really? But what if a national tree we suspect is Flower shows up? You gonna fight them right there?"
I shrugged as if it were obvious.
"We wait."
"We wait?"
Even if some national tree was exposed as Flower right this instant, there was nothing I could do about it.
Even with my power, stirring up the masses would take time.
"It's just about gathering the bare minimum number of people."
"You think the six of us can stop them?"
"Six? More like hardheads."
"Watch your mouth."
When things blew up, the traitors would reveal themselves.
The non-traitor national trees wouldn't even need convincing from us; they'd naturally move to protect the civilians.
That's what national trees were.
"You think so? They might ditch us to protect the trees."
"That's not the national trees' job. That's the church's."
"Ah, got it."
"And if you spot anyone suspicious, memorize their face."
"Why? Kill the guys and rape the girls?"
I said nothing. No one knew how things would play out.
I just gave him that look to let him know.
"Head inside."
"Yes, sir."
Sun nodded, having understood the implication.
I pulled out my phone from my pocket and checked the time: 8 PM.
The Forest Keeper Selection Tournament wasn't far off.
This summer, no one would become a forest keeper.
As if announcing that fact, the cicadas' cries pierced through the hotel window.
-Meeeem, meeeem.
'Save the people, huh.'
I thought to myself as I scrolled through my contacts.
When had I ever moved for some grand cause like this?
"Heh."
-Rrring, rrring.
I dialed a familiar name, and after a few rings, a voice answered.
[Hello?]
Jeong Siwoo. I hadn't been in touch lately.
I had some free time, so I called after a while.
"What's this, you picking up? Not busy?"
[Busy as hell. Been raiding dungeons non-stop. Nearly died this time. Ever had your organs nearly pop out?]
"Oh."
Jeong Siwoo, thrilled at the rare call, launched into an epic tale.
He was still scouring dungeon beacons to find his little sister, honing his skills all the while.
His growth was surging like water.
"Heard things got noisy with Flower lately. How're you holding up?"
[Ah.]
A bitter laugh echoed from the phone.
[Makes me wanna drink.]
"Kukukuk."
The guy's life was as rough as they come.
[How's the selection tournament? You doing well? Word is you're killing it.]
"Same old. Let's grab a drink sometime."
[Kuhuhu. Gotta make time for that.]
The kid was getting stronger by leaps and bounds since I last saw him.
With as many connections as me and living like a protagonist, I rooted for him even if we didn't meet.
"Keep it up."
[Yeah.]
Sensing the exhaustion in his voice, I ended the call with a simple farewell.
-Click.
I'd been walking while talking, and before I knew it, I was there.
At the hotel door. I lightly knocked on that door I'd seen so many times it was boring now.
Knock knock. A crisp sound rang out.
At the same time, the bracelet on my wrist melted like molten iron, enveloping my entire fist.
-Clunk.
The door opened.
Confirming no one was around, I immediately thrust my arm inside.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Insane."
Bead clutched her head in the dark room.
Countermeasures against artifacts that recorded video or audio were already perfect.
The first time was tricky, but once you grasped the structure, you could pause them briefly.
Even that might arouse suspicion.
But it didn't matter.
Flower had already begun their operation.
"Should've waited at least two weeks. What the hell are they rushing for?"
If they were going to strike, it should have been afterward.
After sending back the dropouts, when hardly any civilians were left—that would've been ideal.
'Flower's goal is solely the downfall of the World Tree. Avoiding unnecessary casualties is supposed to be ironclad, right?'
That was the rule set by the saintess who first birthed Flower, and even now, there was implicit pressure to adhere to it.
Bead bit her lower lip hard.
The plan was falling apart.
Especially with Lee Siheon right nearby.
She couldn't show Flower's ugly side any longer.
Not if they wanted to recruit him as an ally, at least.
"They've made up their minds."
She didn't know who had stirred the pot. Most executives distrusted Lee Siheon.
But turning their back on him would shatter the foundation and pillar of the eighth faction.
He was supposed to be Flower's cornerstone.
Bead had no choice but to contact someone she knew.
Essentially, the one who was like a parent to her.
It was meant to be a reprimand, but the response was unwavering.
[Follow that woman for now.]
A dry male voice reverberated.
"But if we miss this chance, Lee Siheon will—"
[Since when do you talk back?]
The contemptuous tone slammed down heavily. Just hearing it chilled her to the core.
Bead held her breath, her face paling.
[Opportunity will come. You wouldn't understand, but the King will return to us in the end.]
"......"
-Click.
"...Yes."
The call ended on its own without a reply.
Yet her body responded as conditioned.
Bead's legs gave out, and she dropped to her knees.
Tr Matusa Engahero (Father of the Forest).
The name of the one she'd spoken to, one of the three subordinates under the eighth executive.
The ruler of nameless trees like Bead.
'Nameless trees'—literally trees without 'flower language' or 'names.'
A derogatory term for weeds of unknown origin, without lineage, treated worse than humans.
"Hongyeon."
A sigh escaped her.
"...Is that person really planning to destroy the World Tree personally?"
The eighth faction had no designated executive.
Before Hongyeon was appointed proxy, it was a lawless zone.
"Knowing she'll be discarded like a worn shoe... there must be a reason she's pushing this far?"
Hongyeon's influence in Flower was growing.
She was extending her reach into areas other executives ignored, expanding her power.
But overreaching like that was a recipe for downfall.
Now, there was no excuse to give Lee Siheon.
The Cradle infiltration, originally slated for another executive, had fallen to Hongyeon.
'Lee Siheon was already disillusioned with Flower. If this gets out...'
The chance of him joining Flower would vanish.
Which meant the eighth executive would never appear.
If the exploited Hongyeon died, the other executives would carve up her divided forces.
Bead could see it happening.
'This doesn't matter?'
Her 'father' claimed Hongyeon's actions had nothing to do with recruiting Lee Siheon.
So pretend to follow Hongyeon and focus on pulling in Lee Siheon.
Bead couldn't comprehend it.
-Knock knock knock.
A knock at the door.
Her legs trembled like a newborn giraffe's as Bead stood.
The sudden shift in situation had left her mind frayed. Emotions in turmoil.
"Who's there at this hour?"
With a cooled expression, she gripped the doorknob and opened it.
-Creak.
A massive shadow sloshed through the gap.
Then a man's hand thrust in, roughly widening it.
-Screech.
She yanked in panic, but a stronger force swung the door open.
The face of the man she'd just been thinking of filled her vision.
Dull, colorless pupils.
A faint killing intent in his gaze. In that moment, Bead realized one thing.
The sudden change in Flower's plans.
This man knew about it.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Getting inside the room took no time at all.
Bead belatedly surged her mana, but I shoved my shoulder through first, knocking her aside.
-Bang!
The door slammed shut, and my bracelet morphed into a gauntlet.
"...What's this about?"
"You know better than anyone."
Bead and I were essentially in a mutual truce.
There were circumstances. We'd even talked.
But with Flower's infiltration imminent, she was a latent tumor.
Bead looked shocked, not even letting out her usual goofy laugh.
"I'm pretty confused myself right now... got nothing to say."
"Flower sure doesn't know much, huh?"
The biggest variable.
I didn't know Bead's true power.
She hid everything about herself from the start.
In the tournament, the first trial.
Even to me, her depth was hard to gauge.
'Too skilled for a low-level grunt.'
I'd said that to her when she made her offer before.
-If a coalition force comes in, it'd be even harder to distinguish. You're moving with the radicals anyway, so dead or alive won't matter.
You could die.
Bead had replied:
-...Do whatever you want.
That's exactly what I planned.
"I've caused you a lot of trouble."
This incident was no small issue.
Just save people? She was a particular problem.
I channeled a bit of mana around my arm.
"...Too late for talking, huh? Fuhihi."
Sensing the hostility, Bead slipped a hand into her clothes.
-Thud!
My body moved on instinct.
Before she could resist, I subdued her at max speed.
Bead stumbled, her head slamming to the floor as my grip tightened around her throat.
"Guh."
During the Forest Keeper Selection Tournament, my stats had grown steadily.
Thanks to padding the bestiary quite a bit.
-Crunch!
I poured strength into my hand, intending to crush her windpipe outright.
No chance for spells or artifacts. End it here.
The moment my fingers dug into Bead's slender neck.
-Flash.
Something wrapped my wrist, yanking it toward the ceiling.
A wire from god-knows-where.
Steel threads bound my entire body.
"..."
Too fast to react, but her reflexes deserved praise.
Bead glared with narrowed eyes, smirking like she'd landed a hit.
But this wasn't enough to push me back.
-Twang, twang!
The taut wires snapped one by one.
My hand fully encircled her throat.
I squeezed.
-Crack!
Her neck broke.
Her eyes widened, muscles shuddering.
The sensation of killing a person.
"No."
I felt the snap, but denied it instantly.
I furrowed my brow at the black liquid oozing from the split skin under my fingers.
-Ooze, ooze.
Bead's body was literally melting.
A sticky liquid reeking like petroleum pooled on the floor.
A crudely shaped mud doll emerged from her heart area.
[पेड़]
An indecipherable character etched boldly on the mud doll.
We'd talked—it was Bead—but this was absurd.
"...Magic comes in all forms."
It wasn't fake.
The conversation was with Bead.
The power and mana inside—it was all her.
But at the last second, it felt like a switcheroo.
'Spatial magic?'
If so, I would've sensed the mana traces.
This was something more esoteric.
An Authority. A unique ability.
I lowered my hand and stroked the mud doll.
-Crack.
It split, the character melting away like ice.
A faint mana emanated from it.Not Bead's. Mana I'd felt once before, not long ago.
'Shaman.'
I'd seen this character somewhere.
Banya, India's national tree.
It was her Authority.