Fairy Tree (2)
Fairy Tree (2)
The mansion grounds were vast. Besides the mansion itself, there were plenty of facilities, but no shortage of places to plant a tree.
'The front gate area isn't ideal.'
The path leading from the main gate to the mansion was lined with flowers blooming in profusion. There was even a garden maintained by the Headmaster's lingering Word Command.
'The back does seem best.'
Behind the mansion lay a broad lawn.
It was where the baby unicorns and spirits usually romped, and its proximity to the mansion made it an ideal spot for planting a Fairy Tree.
- Whoa! Is the house really going to come back to life?
- Rio. The King said he isn't certain, so he's just trying it out. Don't put pressure on him!
- Ah, is that so?
As we headed to the back of the mansion, the fairies beamed with anticipation. While inspecting the land, I gave a wry smile and calmed the bouncing fairies.
[Yeah, Kali's right. It seems possible, but I'm not sure yet. It might not work this time, so please don't be too disappointed.]
- Okay! I'll be looking forward to it!
- I said don't put it like that.
- Eh?
Leaving the whispering fairies behind, I laid my hand on the earth. It was verification work—using Observation and resonance through Taesan to check if it was a suitable spot.
- In the Kingdom as well, the Fairy Tree served as both a fortress wall and a heart. It was an immensely vital presence.
"......."
- The Fairy Tree unfolded a natural barrier to repel external threats and maintained the internal environment so it was always close to paradise.
From what I was hearing, a Fairy Tree was no mere home. It literally functioned as a natural barrier. A tree that received a portion of innate talent, in a manner of speaking.
It unfolded a barrier to ward off danger and shaped the inner environment to make it livable.
The more Fairy Trees were planted in an area, the more its effects amplified.
- Though Your Majesty has not yet fully realized the Authority, you will surely be capable of it.
[......]
- ...Your Majesty?
Terramor, who had appeared at some point and been chattering away, tilted her head.
When she bent over to check my face, I turned my head sharply. I fluttered my wings lightly to hide my face.
- W-wha, Your Majesty...?
Shock spread across Terramor's face.
- Have I perhaps... displeased Your Majesty?
She, who had been standing with such solemn dignity, now fluttered her hands about, not knowing what to do.
At her gestures, hesitant to actually take hold of me, I pouted and replayed the words still lingering in my mind.
[We must escort him to the mansion and see that he rests.]
- ...Ah?
[You call me King this and that, and now you're casually advocating for my confinement. You said you would serve as my knight—is that really acceptable?]
- Er... that is...
[Shouldn't you at least take my side? You're supposed to be my knight. What sort of knight in any land incites the imprisonment of their own king? This is outright treason... bweh.]
"You must not scold a subordinate who has spoken rightly."
Lee Ji-yeon gripped my chin with one hand and pressed my cheeks.
My lips comically jutted out like a fish's. Shaking her head, Lee Ji-yeon squatted down beside me.
"If you interrogate people over things like that, how will anyone dare offer counsel later? If you keep driving away your loyal officials like that, only sycophants will remain at your side."
- Your Majesty the Queen...!
"...Keh-hum! Mhm..."
Terramor's eyes grew misty with emotion. Her cheeks faintly flushed, Lee Ji-yeon awkwardly glanced away under that gaze.
[Dissatisfaction]
[Sulking]
- Bwoo...
"Ahem. Don't be like that, really..."
When I puffed out my cheeks, Lee Ji-yeon kneaded them with her fingers.
"Of course I know you're joking, but if you only tease, it's a bit much... Oh, right. After the meeting ends, come with me to the Taesan family estate."
[Nyeah?]
"I told you before, back on the battlefield. Since you've manifested the Taesan, let's stop by the main house once... Yes, like when Junior went to the Calamity Flame family."
[Ah-ha.]
In essence, since I had manifested Taesan, the idea was that I should visit the family once as a procedural matter.
"Well... besides that, I mentioned it before, didn't I? That the main house manages fairies. Let's go in and take a look together, too."
Lee Ji-yeon spoke while stealing glances at my wings. I tilted my head, a question surfacing.
[Uh... will that be okay?]
The Taesan family territory includes multiple special management zones.
Areas that protect special materials or monsters requiring strict management—their importance means very few people are permitted to come and go.
Entry accompanied by an outsider is especially stringent.
"Don't worry about that. Who do you think I am right now?"
To my doubt, Lee Ji-yeon smiled and pointed at herself. A smile brimming with confidence. Tilting my head, I let out a murmur of admiration.
[Taesan's Acting Clan Head?]
"Yes. The person granting permission and making decisions right now—that's me."
Before the end of last winter break.
The current Clan Head of Taesan, Lee Ji-ah, abruptly declared seclusion and installed the heir, Lee Ji-yeon, as Acting Clan Head.
'The stated reason was training, but she went into the Death Vein, I recall.'
Something that never happened in the original.
'Lee Ji-ah's Taesan is especially powerful, but it also held great output for necromancy.'
The Life Vein and Death Vein were places strictly managed by the Taesan family, and in the original, I had somehow managed to enter and confirm it.
They're exactly what the names suggest. The Life Vein is a place where vitality pools. The Death Vein is... a place where yin energy pools, energy one might call death energy.
Naturally, each is a location ideal for wielding life force manipulation and necromancy respectively.
'Hmm...'
Recalling Lee Ji-ah, whom I met during the last Birth Festival, and the unease I'd felt and observed then stirred a vague sense of foreboding.
"Well, the Acting Clan Head is here at Siyoram anyway. Even though I do the final reviews and approval, the Chief Administrator at the main house is doing the hard work..."
With an awkward laugh, Lee Ji-yeon shrugged her shoulders.
[But you're working incredibly hard too, Senior. Juggling academics and family business.]
"It's manageable only because the Chief Administrator is there. So you really mustn't scold loyal officials too harshly."
[...Nyeah...]
With my lips slightly pouted, I tapped the ground.
Ruuuumble! The earth heaved, and a small pit was formed. Then, I tore through the air with my fingers.
The void split apart. The entrance to a subspace yawned open, and a pitch-black tree root slid out. Following it came a shriveled, dried-out trunk and bare branches without a single leaf.
The dead Fairy Tree I had retrieved earlier.
I placed the Fairy Tree's roots into the pit, then neatly packed the soil back in and secured it. Naturally, something like that wouldn't revive a dead tree.
"So this is a Fairy Tree... It's my first time seeing one in person."
Seo-yul, who had been behind me, squatted down beside me. Her five-colored wings rustled softly, and her eyes full of curiosity swept over the Fairy Tree.
'Hmm...'
Those eyes, sparkling with curiosity, ignited my motivation.
"Shall I help?"
[I'll try it alone first.]
I concentrated and minutely observed the Fairy Tree.
I still had confidence, but certainty felt a bit iffy. With an ambiguous expression, I placed my hand on the Fairy Tree.
As expected, it was already dead.
Though it was a plant, the spark of life was already extinguished. Pouring vitality into a vessel riddled with holes would only cause it to leak back out.
Even if I made it move by leaving residual vitality, that would ultimately be a form of necromancy.
It couldn't truly be called reviving it.
Breathing out calmly, I drew deeply upon the vitality in the ground.
The immense vitality under Taesan's dominion stirred.
An amount so vast that if spread, parched land would revive in an instant, and conversely, if drawn out, the ground would perish.
But here, it was no issue.
The estate where the Headmaster's Word Command lingered overflowed with vitality. I could draw this amount several more times without trouble—and even if I did, it would replenish before long.
I slowly guided that vitality into the roots of the Fairy Tree.
The roots, to which vitality clung, twitched, and soon the vitality surged deep into them.
'As I thought, this alone isn't enough.'
The vitality I had carefully stored seeped right out.
'The vessel needs to be repaired first for anything to work...'
Taesan.
An Expansion Ability concerning death energy and vitality.
That alone wouldn't suffice. Instinctively, I arrived at the answer.
I wasn't incapable. With another factor, it could be done.
'A fairy's status.'
A race born to tend and manage Fairy Trees. And among them, an entity that makes Fairy Trees grow and thrive.
Am I that entity? I don't quite know, but judging by the reactions of spirits and fairies, it's likely correct.
Holding my breath again, I raised my heart power. Slowly swelling, the innate talent of Taesan expanded.
'Manifest.'
Taesan Expansion Ability
Life and Death Judgment
- Wooong!
The vitality contained within the Fairy Tree blazed brightly. Vitality not yet fully absorbed was swiftly drawn into the Fairy Tree.
'Start with Taesan first, then...'
- Wooong!
A vibration coursed out again.
Not the Fairy Tree. Not Taesan either. The innate talent within me swelled.
At the same time, my wings emitted a vibration. The three pairs of wings casting bright five-colored light flapped roughly.
It was instantaneous. A line connected between my wings and the Fairy Tree.
- Crrrrack!
The Fairy Tree writhed violently.
'Kgh, gak...'
My body, my physical form, writhed along with it. Something inside me expanded. Gaps that hadn't existed formed, tore open, spread.
'Ah.'
A familiar sensation. A sensation I had experienced once before.
My soul was trying to emerge from my body.
'I'm seriously going crazy.'
- Kuoooooong!
The Fairy Tree shot upward.
* * *
While Lee Ha-yul was away receiving Taesan instruction, a meeting was in full swing in one of the mansion's rooms.
"About Ha-yul... Hmm, I mean, is scolding him this lightly really enough, I wonder..."
The topic was, of course, Lee Ha-yul. Specifically, the intensity of the scolding for this incident. At Ellia's worried words, Atra shrugged her shoulders.
"It can't be helped. It was something he did in the Tower of Growth after considerable deliberation, in his own way. If we grill him even over that, next time he might do it outside the Tower."
"I know that, but... Haa..."
Ellia let out a deep sigh.
She wasn't wrong. The Tower of Growth was a place for training. A place specialized for recognizing one's limits and expanding them.
It was also the right place for experimenting with techniques one wasn't sure were even possible, like Lee Ha-yul did.
"But the thing he calls a technique is just so..."
The problem was that the technique Lee Ha-yul had experimented with was utterly absurd.
That day, in the space where the second-year Tower entry was taking place, had it even been ten minutes since Lee Ha-yul had left, saying he'd go test a technique? They remembered the vibration and aftershock that shook the world as if it were collapsing.
A portion of the world had even flickered with light.
Those who gasped, thinking a catastrophe had struck, witnessed a sphere, visible clearly even from a distance, shift from black to white.
It was the direction Lee Ha-yul had headed.
Those who went that way, thinking no, it couldn't be, witnessed a truly preposterous sight.
A pit, empty as if a chunk had been bitten out of the world. The sky shattering and crumbling down.
The wall dividing the world had been breached, revealing even the void-like space beyond.
Lee Ha-yul was nowhere to be seen.
Naturally, Ellia had fainted, and Hong Yeon-hwa had to squeeze her eyes shut and clutch at her fraying reason. Even Baek A-rin stood there blankly slack-jawed.
"Is that really a technique? Isn't it just setting off a hydrogen bomb?"
"How does something like that break the sky and walls? To begin with, just considering the range, it seemed far wider..."
Truly an output beyond imagination. The technique that finished off the Twin-headed Poison Dragon before had also been absurd, but this... it surpassed that level by quite a lot.
In truth, calling it a technique was generous—it was a self-detonation move. Even now, their eyes trembled at the thought that Lee Ha-yul was refining and intending to use such a thing.
"Still, he's trying so desperately to become stronger..."
By now, everyone roughly suspected.
Lee Ha-yul's excessive obsession with strength. At first, they thought it was just a reaction to unhappiness suffered in helpless times, but lately, their thoughts had changed.
The Reverse Side.
Lee Ha-yul had known about that catastrophe in advance. And he had prepared beforehand and taken action to stop it.
"Tsk. Well, we're waiting for now, but I wonder when he'll actually tell us."
"Who knows. With that child's personality, he'll likely try to hide it and shoulder the burden alone. Maybe it would be right to just all pick a day and grill him together..."
"Haa..."
The sighs they had been holding back in front of Lee Ha-yul escaped unceasingly in this room.
"Hoo."
Hong Yeon-hwa also sighed deeply and sank into the sofa.
"Anyway, where did all the fairy children go? Rudi and Kali, who were here just a moment ago, are gone too."
"They said Ha-yul called them, I hear? Something about rebuilding the house, was it?"
"House?"
Everyone tilted their heads at the random statement.
- Rumble, rumble...!
"What the."
At the same time, a vibration shook the mansion. In an instant, a shadow fell over one side of the room.
Everyone who had bolted upright turned their heads toward where the shadow was cast.
"...What."
And then they witnessed it. Through the large window, a gigantic tree was visible, shooting upward as if to pierce the sky.
It was in the direction where Lee Ha-yul was.
"Ha, shit. What the hell is that now."
They didn't need to see the culprit to know who it was.
A grim darkness settled over Hong Yeon-hwa's face.
* * *
[Mental State 「Yo?Jeong」 is changing.]
[Mental State 「Yo?Jeong」 is changing.]
...
[Collides with Mental State 「Mi?」.]