The Thirst of Paradise (3)
Fwoooosh-!
A colossal pillar of light surged from the ground into the sky. The true form of Halo, the light of beginnings, was laid bare, and all through the manor came the sound of something burning away.
“Kraaaagh!”
What followed was a piercing scream, and Eldrix Sererial rolled across the floor, writhing. Black smoke was already pouring from his eyelids, and his whole body had shriveled like a punctured balloon.
The true miracle that melted all evil at its source. That was Halo’s power.
Whirrr-!
At the same time, Raul snatched out of the air the throwing knife that had already left the Embers’ hand and was flying toward him.
He caught it with nothing but reflexes and dynamic vision pushed past their limits, with no special finesse or technique at all.
“...Are you kidding me?”
A voice muttered in disbelief from the white-haired Ember who seemed to have thrown it.
Raul glared at him with eyes washed pure white and said, “I’ll borrow this for a second.”
Then he threw it straight back.
Of course, he drew his arm back, stepped off with his rear foot, and put his whole waist into it.
Screeeech──!
A heavy shockwave burst from the knife he hurled.
“Shit!”
The white-haired Ember swore and rolled to the side with a pale face, thoroughly startled.
An Ember had dodged it instead of blocking it.
That alone was enough to prove the overwhelming force behind the throw.
Then the third Ember stepped up beside the red-haired Ember.
He was an old man, his face scarred all over.
He said, “Remarkable. The pressure I’m feeling has multiplied by at least a hundred in an instant. I suppose I can see why Aila would quit the job, babbling nonsense about a judge or some such thing.”
“Aila?”
When Raul asked, moving one eyebrow, the old man glanced at the sleepy-eyed assassin beside him.
So that must have been her name.
“Doesn’t suit you.”
“Ha. None of your business.”
Aila jerked her head sharply, hard enough to make her hair whip.
Raul could already feel cold sweat streaming down his back as he stared at the old man.
He still had only about a minute left to maintain Halo.
“...Old man. Since we’re talking, why don’t you back off nicely? I’m interested in that elf wriggling around over there like a beetle. Not in you lot.”
But, as expected, the old man shook his head firmly.
“A deal is a deal. Trust is an Ember’s asset and its history.”
“Even though that bastard was planning to pin everything on you and kill you in the end?”
“That is only your unilateral claim.”
Crack, crack.
With that, the old man began loosening his body.
As if taking that as a signal, the white-haired Ember and the red-haired woman, who had been dazed a moment ago, also drew their swords.
Raul issued his final warning.
“If you don’t move, you die.”
“For us, death is a friend, and a brother.”
“...I’m sure it is.”
Raul let out a small, dry laugh at a line he’d heard more than once in the game itself.
Then Perfect Holy Armor layered itself over his entire body, overwritten by the power of the opened Halo.
Perfect Holy Armor took the form of a pure white full-body suit of armor.
In the next instant, Raul vanished.
At the same time, the Ember’s eyes widened to the point of tearing.
Raul found the Ember only a beat late and drove a fist charged with strength beyond its limit straight into his jaw.
Crack-!
Something in his head broke.
The white-haired Ember died on the spot.
“Tch!”
At that moment, Raul heard a click of the tongue beside his ear.
No, looking properly, he saw the sharp blades that had already flown toward his neck and chest, only to be rebuffed by the thick Holy Armor.
Crazy.
This was beyond being invisible to the eye. Even with Halo opened, the speed was so absurd that Raul couldn’t even perceive it.
The old man was strong enough that, if Raul had not opened Halo, his head would have flown off before he even realized he was dead.
Claaang-claaang-claaang-!
Still, the old man was not an assassin who relied on the force and weight of his blade.
He was someone who poured everything into instantaneous reaction and speed.
Slash! Clang-clang-clang-clang!
His hundred-blow barrage, so fast it sent sparks flying, could not pierce the Perfect Holy Armor.
“Bad matchup.”
Raul shot forward toward the old man, who had already swung his sword more than a hundred times.
His movement was too fast to see, too fast to follow, but...
Shaaaaaah-!
Just like Holy Armor, the Perfect Holy Weapon took form at the tip of the dagger, extending a blade of pure light.
In an instant, the dagger became a longsword.
The impossible ambush was not something even an Ember assassin could predict.
“Huh!?”
With the sound of a sharp inhale, a torrent of blood burst from the old man’s mouth.
The ruthless slash ran from his carotid artery all the way down to his waist.
The old man pitched forward, still clutching his throwing knives in both hands.
Whoosh-!
Raul flicked the extended blade of light and shook the blood from it.
Then he leveled the sword at the remaining Ember, Aila.
But the red-haired assassin had already set her sword politely at her feet and raised both hands.
Raul narrowed his brow and asked, “What.”
“If the old man can’t handle you, why would I bother fighting? I surrender.”
“Death was supposed to be an Ember’s friend and brother.”
“Not me. I hate that stupid tradition of ‘ours’ in the first place.”
Raul thought for a moment.
Now that Halo was open, it was fine. But she was still an Ember.
No one knew what would happen if she made up her mind and ambushed him.
A risk that was by no means small, a variable that could go anywhere.
I should kill her here.
And yet, for some reason, his mouth said something completely different from the conclusion in his head.
“Then it’s a deal.”
“...Huh?”
“Help me once later, no conditions. Your life and mine. This time, evenly. How about it?”
Aila’s eyes went round.
She looked at him as if she couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re really going to let me live?”
Funny for someone who had just asked to be spared to be so suspicious.
Raul said in an unconcerned tone, “I’m not letting you live. I’m making you owe me. Didn’t I say it? It’s a deal.”
“...”
“You lot are clean when it comes to deals, aren’t you? Or was that a lie?”
“It’s true.”
“Then that’s fine.”
With that, Raul really did turn away from Aila.
The red-haired assassin still watched him with an uncertain expression.
But when he truly showed her his back, she silently stared at him for a moment longer, then vanished between the shadows of the manor like a haze of pale night fog.
What remained was Raul, bearing the opened Halo, and the shattered remains of Eldrix, turned to mush.
“Khuk!”
Only after confirming that all traces of the Embers had vanished did Raul finally hunch over and vomit up the blood that had risen to his throat.
In truth, he was already in a fairly precarious state.
He had been forcibly extending his limit with the Source of Recovery, but as he’d said from the start, the time he could endure the opened Halo was only about a minute.
The longer he held it back, the harder the recoil hit.
“Kgh! Cough, cough!”
The amount of blood rushing back up was so much that Raul couldn’t get it all out; what he failed to spit out kept pouring into his airway, forcing him to cough again and again.
The sticky stench of blood and the stabbing migraine blurred his vision.
Even so, he forced his breathing steady and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“Huuuu.”
Raul reached out to Eldrix, who had lost all shape and become the color of gray slime.
“Impure evil, tainted soul. May the holy flame burn your sins and purify even your soul...”
What Raul was chanting was a prayer of the Elra Church, more commonly known by the name of the God of Flame.
Unlike Mimir, who forgave and saved without end, or Motala, who only punished and judged without mercy...
It was a prayer of purification, one that burned the subject’s soul in sacred fire and restored it to a clean state.
“...And whatever darkness falls upon the path you walk, may the sun and stars light that road...”
Crimson flame bloomed from the tips of Raul’s fingers as he recited the prayer.
This was not the concept of a skill, but a use of divinity he himself had learned over a long journey.
Because the radiance of Halo was the original source of all divinity.
With Halo opened, he could even crudely imitate authorities he had never obtained.
Of course, that only worked because I knew prayers and holy formations like this as knowledge...
What mattered was that he could now purify the soul of a corrupted elf.
Thus did the thing called Eldrix fade away within sacred flame.
Raul extended the back of his hand toward what remained after it had burned completely, transformed into a gray-white mist.
“Logos.”
Stigma-Logos confirms the offering: the Thirsty Fairy of Madness.
A fitting offering has been confirmed. Would you like to reincarnate it as a Guardian?
Raul’s answer was, naturally, “Yes.”
The Stigma shone, and the fairy’s remnants, now turned to mist, were sucked into it.
Logos did not treat a target with demonic energy as an offering.
Purification was the preparatory work for that.
“...The Thirsty Fairy of Madness.”
The epithet displayed in the message revealed the essence of the subject.
Eldrix was the Thirsty Fairy of Madness.
What, exactly, had he been so thirsty for?
He had said he wanted blood and war.
Was that thirst truly Eldrix’s own?
Had the Abyssal Duke actually brainwashed Eldrix?
What kind of elf had the original Eldrix Sererial been?
Was it his arrogance that had left the fairy thirsty, or this World of the Divine Tree?
Questions drifted aimlessly through his head.
But by now, there was no way to know what was right or wrong.
The one who could answer those questions no longer existed anywhere in this world.
A white image formed in Raul’s eyes.
He stood there in silence, watching the pale soul of a fairy as it returned to the embrace of the Stigma for a long while.
A twisted World of the Divine Tree.
One who had tried to destroy that world in a twisted way.
In truth, Raul found himself agreeing with some of his thoughts.
This World of the Divine Tree was already badly broken, warped far beyond repair.
Maybe...
If Raul and Eldrix had met in a completely different era, by a completely different method, would many things not have turned out differently than they had now?
An idle supposition that no longer carried any meaning.
It was neither regret nor lingering attachment, but something colder than both, and it drifted through the air beside a sliver of starlight that had flown in through the window before disappearing.
“Kgh?!”
It was around then that blood surged back up his throat again.
This time, it was not merely a cough of blood.
A tingling sensation fell from under his jaw all the way to his toes.
Raul’s consciousness blinked on and off like a failing light.
The world looked like a broken television.
It seemed the backlash from the opened Halo, forcibly suppressed by a Source of Recovery amplified by that very opened Halo, had finally come due.
“Ha.”
Raul lost consciousness on the spot without even realizing he was about to pass out.
***
“Huu...”
When he opened his eyes with a groan, he found himself in a blue meadow.
A gentle breeze, grass blades and leaves fluttering with green light in them.
He could tell at a glance.
This was a sanctuary.
The inside of the walls protected by countless Guardians. The land of the Divine Tree.
But something was strange.
“Why...”
The enormous wall that had once encircled the land of the Divine Tree was gone.
All he could see was an open expanse broad enough to clear his chest, and an endless blue field stretching away.
On the horizon, a tangerine sunset was hanging in the sky.
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
Then a voice spoke.
Because he had heard it without any warning at all, Raul’s hand reflexively went to the dagger at his waist, and his head snapped around at the same time.
But what came into view was a familiar face.
Golden hair like the Milky Way, deep green eyes.
“...Alicia?”
She was Alicia.
But she slowly shook her head at Raul’s question.
“Are you feeling better?”
Alicia’s familiar face was using an unfamiliar way of speaking.
As Raul stiffened with a blank expression, she gave him a fresh smile and said, “You ran a fever for three days and nights. It was temporary, but your heart really did stop for a few minutes at a time. What do they call that again? A near-death experience?”
“You’re not Alicia.”
“Yep. That’s right. I only copied her face.”
The being wearing Alicia’s face touched her lips with an index finger and smiled in a strangely unsettling way.
Sure enough, he couldn’t imagine that Alicia would ever make that expression.
“Then what are you?”
At the question, she looked at Raul with eyes as deep as an unfathomable lake, then suddenly turned her head to the side.
Following her gaze, Raul turned as well, and there it stood: a giant tree.
“...The Divine Tree?”
Even though it was a guess he had formed himself, he still found it hard to believe. Yet “she,” wearing Alicia’s face, nodded.
The girl leaning against the great tree tilted her head with an enchanting smile.
Then a familiar message appeared before Raul’s eyes.
The Divine Tree is watching you.
“No way...”
“You still don’t believe me?”
“No, it’s not that I don’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”
For a being with divinity to appear before him like this, in person?
Even the church’s saintesses spent their whole lives receiving nothing more than a few voices and a handful of messages.
“The Saint is suspicious, huh?”
“No... this isn’t really suspicion so much as...”
To put it bluntly, the Divine Tree coming all the way out here to meet him like this, as if nothing were strange, was itself strange.
Raul recalled the setting book for Exde that he had pored over many times.
“Wasn’t a human supposed to go mad if they faced a god directly?”
“The Saint knows a lot, doesn’t he?”
“...”
“Why are you looking so serious? You’re a Saint who caused divinity to bloom across this continent in the first place. Don’t let some great Halo bearer get spooked by a provincial little god like me.”
Provincial little god...?
Raul was honestly taken aback by the Divine Tree’s unexpectedly easygoing, almost breezy tone.
“...Can a god really talk like this?”
“Why not?”
“No, you just seem very different from what I expected.”
“Is there some rule that says a being with divinity can’t be like this?”
“...I guess not.”
At first, he had expected a stern, grandmotherly tone and a similarly old-fashioned personality, but the Divine Tree was a far more free-spirited being than that.
“Ahem. Right. I think we’re done with the introductions, so shall we move on to the real matter?”
“...The real matter?”
When Raul asked in surprise, the Divine Tree gave a slight, somehow sinister smile.
It wasn’t frightening at all with Alicia’s face, but Raul still kept his expression serious, given who he was dealing with.
The real matter, spoken of by a divine being.
Was it about the enemies he would have to face in the future?
Or something regarding an alliance with the elves?
Whatever it was, he thought he’d be in trouble if he let his guard down, so he forced himself to stay calm and kept his mind turning.
Then, without warning, she held out a leather pouch.
“Here.”
“What is this?”
When Raul took it and looked at her with a rather puzzled expression, the Divine Tree wore a face that said she didn’t understand him.
“What do you think? It’s a token of gratitude.”
“Gratitude?”
“You listened to my request and stopped that child... Eldrix. Thanks to you, all the currents flowing toward that future vanished. Consider it a small sincerity from me.”
To be blunt, Raul had only been thinking about stopping the miserable bad ending he’d seen through future sight; he hadn’t even dared expect something would actually be placed in his hands for it.
“There was a reward?”
“Do you dislike it?”
“Not at all.”
Without hesitation, Raul loosened the string on the smooth pouch.
But the instant he saw what was inside, his eyes flew wide open.
“What in the world...”
What emerged in Raul’s hand was a fruit the size of a fist, gleaming with a beautiful blue-green luster.
The moment he saw it, an item information window appeared before his eyes for the first time in a very long while.
And it made no sense.
“Huh?”
Fruit of the World Tree
Grade: Legendary
When consumed, it raises the lowest-grade physical attribute to the same grade as the highest-grade physical attribute.
He had played Exde for more than six thousand hours, and yet he had never even known this item existed.
“Raise the lowest attribute to the same grade as the highest one...?”
There were elixirs, sure, but did elixirs with conditions this strange even exist?
More than that, this condition matched Raul almost absurdly well.
His highest-grade attribute was the A-rank Strength that had undergone a sudden leap not long ago.
His lowest, however, was none other than D-rank Agility.
The three consecutive rank-ups that had once changed Raul’s body shape itself.
He could recreate that again.
“This is... honestly ridiculous.”