Chapter 145
Chapter 145
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 145
Chapter Title: Surviving in the Sky Garden (7)
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It was an abrupt cataclysm.
The earth trembled with a palpable intensity, and the sky shimmered unnaturally.
Everyone in the Sky Garden could feel it.
And as if that weren't enough, monsters of bone began to spring up from all directions.
The examinees, scattered for their respective tasks, couldn't help but question the turn of events.
“Wh-what the! Skeletons are coming out of the ground…!”
“Hm? Is this also part of the task? A curious development.”
“Tch, I was so close to succeeding…. Hey, kid. I don’t know what’s going on, but hide behind me.”
Some were startled and frightened by the unforeseen development.
Others calmly crossed their arms, trying to assess the situation.
Still others, who had been trying to appease the fairies, were irritated by the sudden interruption.
Perhaps it was because only the top 1% of the ten thousand examinees remained—the cream of the crop.
They managed to deal with the attacking skeletons, each reacting in their own way.
[ “Attention! The current events unfolding in the Sky Garden are a real emergency! All examinees are to immediately request assistance from nearby staff or group up with other examinees if possible! I repeat! The current events unfolding in the Sky Garden….” ]
Fortunately, if one could call it that.
Within minutes of the incident, a message was delivered to all examinees via their watches.
It stated that what was happening was not part of the task but a real situation.
However, the examinees had already sensed this was no mere show.
The chilling air that seemed to freeze their skin was instinctual proof of the danger.
Elsewhere in the Sky Garden.
A group consisting of one human without magic and two fairies also quickly grasped the situation.
“Tch! This is why I was against letting humans into the Sky Garden in the first place! They said there would be absolutely no danger…!”
Murmur fumed, watching the skeletons rise from the ground.
He was so angry that a trickle of blood seeped from his bitten lip.
His reaction was perfectly natural.
He had been opposed to holding the Fixer examination in the Sky Garden from the start.
He had been forced to accept due to the insistence of some fairies that they shouldn't antagonize the Fixer Association, and the generous offer of support for the Sky Garden.
But contrary to their reassurances, an accident had actually occurred.
As someone who cared deeply for the fairies, he couldn't help but be furious with the Fixers who had pushed this through.
‘Hmm… The main cause is probably the hidden World Tree Seed…’
Yuria, however, broke into a cold sweat, unsure how to react.
The value of the Sky Garden was only that it was a special island where fairies lived.
In truth, there was no reason for anyone to forcibly invade or infiltrate it.
And to sneak into a place that a titan like Tempest was watching with wide-open eyes?
Considering the risk and return, one would have to be completely out of their mind.
Thus, the intruder's objective could only be the World Tree Seed, a powerful potential asset.
If so, hiding such an item without telling the Fixer Association had to be considered a certain degree of negligence.
‘Well, Murmur himself didn't even know it was the World Tree Seed. And considering human greed, he probably thought it was better to just hide it…’
Of course, it wouldn't have been a good thing if humans had discovered the existence of the World Tree Seed first.
They wouldn't know that planting the World Tree on Earth would immediately cause the ecosystem to collapse.
They might have run all sorts of experiments and set Earth on a course for destruction.
In the end, this crisis was bound to happen sooner or later, initiated by someone.
It was more accurate to blame the intruders than to place all the fault on Murmur.
Therefore, Yuria sorted through her thoughts amidst the chaos.
With a rather serious expression, she contemplated her next move.
‘Now that it’s come to this, the best course of action is to dispose of the World Tree Seed without a second thought…’
But no matter how she thought about it, there was only one best course of action for Yuria.
To secure the World Tree Seed first and then crush it with all her psychokinetic strength so it couldn't be used.
After all, no matter who invaded the Sky Garden, as long as Tempest was here, no one short of the Metahuman Liberation Army's commander-in-chief could stand against him alone.
The real threat to prevent was the intruder securing the World Tree Seed and escaping.
The conclusion, then, was simple and clear. Her ultimate goal had to be the seed's destruction, but…
‘Setting aside the challenge of earning enough trust for Murmur to tell me its location… how am I supposed to convey my intentions?’
The problem was that she was physically incapable of communicating any intent to others.
All she could express were three things: like, dislike, and I don't know.
How on earth was she supposed to ask him where the World Tree Seed was with just that?
Yuria squeezed her eyes shut, a suffocating sense of helplessness washing over her.
Whether he knew her feelings or not.
Murmur looked at Yuria with a highly agitated expression and shouted.
“Hey, human in white! You’re in the way, so hurry back to where the other humans are! We don’t have the luxury of protecting the likes of you!”
“…”
“M-Murmur…!”
He could tolerate her tagging along to find the culprit behind the explosion until now.
But it seemed that with the situation as it was, he had no desire to leisurely escort a single human.
His tone was so forceful.
Even Chiriru, nestled in Yuria's arms, was startled, her eyes wide with bewilderment.
Just as it seemed Murmur would leave her behind, a fortunate interruption occurred.
As if cutting through the conversation, a horde of skeletons burst from the ground and lunged at them.
The skeletons, their bodies viciously cracked all over, exuded a menacing aura that the tiny, doll-like fairies, barely 30cm tall, seemed ill-equipped to handle.
“Where did all these bones come from…! Begone!”
*CRASH!*
However, the moment Murmur casually extended a hand into the air, a powerful wave of force erupted, sweeping the skeletons away with ease.
It was a pure wave of magical energy, containing raw power without even an incantation.
It was a clear demonstration of the outstanding skill of one of the most powerful mages among the fairies.
Yuria, who had been quietly observing, watched the disintegrating skeletons intently and confirmed a suspicion she’d had.
‘…Those skeleton soldiers aren’t reanimated corpses, they’re created from magic. The Sky Garden wouldn’t have that many bodies buried here in the first place. This means it’s a ridiculously large-scale spell cast by a necromancer of considerable skill.’
Creating bodies from thin air was an unimaginably difficult feat.
So difficult, in fact, that Drakel, whom she had met before, had to rely on a Tesseract.
This meant the perpetrator was a necromancer whose skills defied common sense…
She briefly tried to recall who could wield such corpse magic.
Could it be Morte, whom she met before at Saint Maria?
If so, was this the work of the Metahuman Liberation Army?
‘Tempest, Vespera, and now the Metahuman Liberation Army… Isn’t the scale of this a bit too large? What I can do here is…’
Feeling a headache coming on, Yuria instinctively clutched the Tesseract on her chest.
She had stored nearly ten days' worth of energy in it in preparation for the Fixer exam.
With this much, she could wield great power for a short time, just as she had against Akashumir.
But she couldn't be certain she could defeat the invaders attacking the Sky Garden in a single blow.
Even if she became her future self and wielded immense power, the duration would be a few minutes at most.
And right nearby was Tempest, who was her equal or even stronger.
At best, she could introduce a small variable, but it wouldn't significantly affect the overall outcome.
‘If it won’t make a huge difference right now… I should save the Tesseract’s energy for the very last moment, just in case. Luckily, Tempest is here. He’ll figure out a way to resolve this.’
Yuria finalized her thoughts and decided on her course of action.
First, survive this battlefield.
Then, if the enemy tries to escape with the World Tree Seed, stop them with everything she has!
With her resolve firm, she carefully hugged the trembling Chiriru and stood boldly before Murmur.
*You’re going to save the fairies now, right? Then I’ll help, too.*
That was the meaning her gesture was filled with.
“I told you, you’re in the way…!”
But to Murmur, was Yuria nothing but a nuisance?
He glared at her in annoyance and began to shout, his anger about to erupt.
His action, however, was cut short.
A massive hand shot out from the ground without any warning.
“What—!”
It was a grotesque, withered, misshapen arm.
Its thickness was such that Yuria would need to stretch both her arms to barely wrap around it.
The arm, which had appeared without a sound, moved with the speed of a swatting hand catching a fly.
Unfortunately, its target was Murmur, floating in mid-air.
Spotting the ambush too late, he was startled and tried to react hastily.
‘Dammit! I didn't sense it at all…!’
But perhaps because he had let his guard down, his reaction was far too slow.
It seemed the hand would grab him before the spell he was hastily weaving could be completed.
Fairies possessed a unique magic system and were quite powerful when using magic.
But they were born with small, frail physiques, and their bodies themselves were not strong.
This meant he was facing at least a serious injury, or possibly a fatal one that would endanger his life.
It was a truly desperate crisis.
‘Don't be ridiculous! If I fall here… who will protect the fairies!’
Murmur had a duty to protect the fairies of the Sky Garden.
It wasn't a role assigned by anyone.
It was because his dream was for all his kin to live happily.
Thus, even in this dire crisis, Murmur's eyes were wide open, his mind racing.
All his effort was focused on minimizing the damage and finding a way to overcome this situation.
‘There’s… no way! Dammit…!’
But no matter how hard he thought, there was no breakthrough.
Magic had an unavoidable preparation time, a limit that could not be surpassed.
In the end, time flowed on, and just as the vicious hand was about to crush Murmur’s body!
Suddenly, Murmur’s floating body was pulled as if guided by an unseen force.
It wasn't magic or anything of the sort; it was a phenomenon like a miracle.
“Ugh…!”
In that completely unexpected moment, Murmur’s face was suddenly buried in something warm and soft.
He was so flustered that he bit his own innocent tongue.
Of course, even though he bit his tongue, he had no time to feel the pain.
The situation of finding himself embraced by Yuria was utterly bewildering.
Belatedly, the spell Murmur had prepared shot out like lightning, gouging the earth and mercilessly shredding whatever was hidden within.
“Groooaaar…!”
Hiding beneath the ground was a massive giant.
If one had to name it, it would be a zombie giant.
But perhaps because its body had been torn to shreds by Murmur's powerful magic.
The zombie giant, its arm outstretched, let out a feeble sound before turning into magical energy and scattering into dust.
A monster that would have been difficult for even a decent examinee to handle had been turned back into ashes in an instant, its reanimation all for naught!
“Th-th-th…”
“…?”
But Murmur, who had accomplished this, had no time to spare a thought for the disintegrating zombie giant.
The vivid sensation of a woman, which he was feeling for the first time in his life, had sent his usually calm reason flying far away in an instant.
His face turned beet red as he squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.
“Don’t press such a vulgar thing against my face!”
“…?!”
*Vulgar? What did I do?*
Yuria’s eyes widened in bewilderment.
It was such a shocking statement that the serious atmosphere shattered in an instant.