Noble Birth
Trixie’s lower lip jutted out in a sharp little pout. It was the same expression her father, the Ancient Dragon, wore whenever he was displeased—an expression even his daughter could never be on the receiving end of.
Hmph! He must’ve known about that thing coming here before I did. What, did he just get lazy and leave all the work to me?
Arms crossed, Trixie glared at the lingering aftermath of the beam. At this rate, maybe the Ancient Dragon could have stopped it with a single gesture. It felt as though she alone had been made to suffer for nothing.
While she was still feeling the reverberations of the blast, a resonant voice rang once more inside her head.
【Child. I changed its course from the villages and toward here, and you stopped it splendidly.】
What. So he wasn’t going to block it himself, just make her do the hard part?
A tiny vein twitched on Trixie’s forehead.
“Isn’t that a little too much? I could’ve gotten hurt. Are you really trying to kill your one and only daughter?”
Trixie called toward Mount Taesan, where the Ancient Dragon resided. For some reason, she had the distinct feeling he was laughing heartily on the other end.
【I did not raise my daughter to be so weak. If you were harmed, it would simply mean your training was lacking, would it not?】
“You do remember that you’ve been making me train in every possible way since the day I opened my eyes, right?”
【That is only natural for the child of this Ancient Dragon…. Stop whining needlessly. You are still lacking in training.】
“…….”
Ah. She really couldn’t take any more.
The father who was always stern and grave was suddenly becoming infuriatingly annoying today.
As the Ancient Dragon’s voice overlapped with the memory of him, from childhood onward, endlessly stressing the importance of effort, Trixie finally let go of the last thread of reason.
“I’m going to cool my head off somewhere. Don’t look for me for a while.”
Trixie closed her right eye and concentrated. In her left yellow iris, the character for void formed, and a flash of light wrapped around her body.
She was activating Spatial Genesis, one of the powers of time and space that had been specially granted to her when she created the Ancient Dragon. It was one of the spatial techniques under his command.
The destination must have been quite far, because the brilliance of the flash kept intensifying.
【When you see our goddess after so long, do send her my regards.】
Just as Trixie was setting the coordinates and preparing to move, a calm voice that sounded almost gleeful echoed in her head. At the absurd remark, Trixie stuck out her tongue and vanished.
【……】
Only silence settled over the deserted shore.
If the demonic energy that had flown in from beyond the sea had not been stopped here, more than half the kingdom currently inhabited would have been destroyed. But the Ancient Dragon had no intention of letting his daughter recklessly throw herself into danger.
He knew her limits, so he did not interfere further, yet if anything had truly gone wrong, he had already been prepared to respond at once.
Looking at his own massive body coiled inside the enormous dungeon, the Ancient Dragon felt old memories rise up with such clarity that it was as though they had just happened.
An existence who had once held his tiny form in her arms, smiling beautifully. He could feel only the faintest trace of her presence.
He had missed her ever since she left.
And yet… a small part of him also wished she would never return.
When he thought of him—of the one who had once called himself the king of the demon realm—his feelings only grew more complicated.
Above all, he hoped she would not be too deeply hurt.
“Welcome, and my respect to you, heroes! You’ve truly been through a great ordeal. To have slain the Silent Reaper, you’ve achieved an unprecedented feat! Hm? The Life Tree? Elves… what’s that?”
The hero’s party had arrived at the 8th Division to conclude the two-month journey they had undertaken from humanity’s front line in Makyeong, and they told Austin everything that had happened along the way. Of course, after they had defeated the Silent Reaper, they slightly altered their account, saying that the Life Tree had been purified and that a race called the ancient elves had awakened.
At first Austin looked puzzled, but once Eden showed him the colossal Life Tree through the video magic he had recorded, even the veteran general, who had seen every manner of battle, stared so wide-eyed that his eyeballs nearly fell out, and he dropped the pen he had been using to write the report. This news would be sent to the intelligence division of Austin’s country and spread across every nation on the continent.
As the Life Tree, which had once fallen unconscious under demonic contamination, awakened and began to purify the miasma, Makyeong was still saturated with it. Gates continued to open at regular intervals, sending monsters along with the miasma, so the front had to be maintained. Still, the density of the miasma had dropped significantly overall, and the monsters no longer radiated the same feral madness they once had.
“To think you not only accomplished the feat of defeating the Silent Reaper, who had only ever driven us back, but also discovered something like this. Your names will remain in history as heroes, and they’ll be remembered for generations upon generations.”
When word spread through the command tent that the hero party had returned, officers stationed on the front gathered in clusters and crowded in, eager to catch even a glimpse of them. Lee Yu-seong hid his embarrassment beneath a solemn expression.
“Haha. We were just lucky. A hero should naturally do whatever is necessary for the sake of humanity.”
Lee Yu-seong briefly recalled what had happened moments before.
After fighting the Silent Reaper and suffering many injuries, he had come to his senses and blushed when he saw a beautiful elf with blond hair he had never seen before. She possessed a gentle, meek beauty that was different from Hilde’s. With flowers and lovely plants filling the area around them, he had briefly wondered if he’d died and gone to heaven rather than being in Makyeong.
Wait. What is this elf? There weren’t any races like elves in this game.
“Ack! Why does the Life Tree look like that!”
After looking around a little, Lee Yu-seong had been startled half out of his wits by the sight of a massive, living tree whose top seemed to vanish into the sky. This thing, given such a grand name as the Life Tree, had always been nothing more than a desolate object in the game—something you could poke at, get nothing from, and leave behind as an Easter egg. It was completely different from what he remembered seeing before he collapsed.
Could a lot of time have passed after I fell?
At Lee Yu-seong’s commotion, Eire turned her head and waved.
“The human is awake!”
Following Eire’s gaze, Lee Yu-seong spotted his party resting and preparing food not far away. After that, the hero party called Lee Yu-seong over and, while they ate, explained everything that had happened without leaving out a single detail. When he heard that the gentle elf clinging to Hilde was the Silent Reaper, he choked for a moment.
“...Then what if the Silent Reaper attacks humans again?”
At Lee Yu-seong’s worried question, Hilde set down the spoon she had been using and spoke.
“I can guarantee it. There needs to be at least one person guarding the Life Tree.”
“Still, she was a demon who’d made such a terrible name for herself. It’s hard to just believe that all at once.”
“Now that she has neither the reason nor the motive to harm people, it won’t happen again.”
As Hilde defended herself, the delighted Eire pressed herself against Hilde.
“Thank you, Lady Hilde! I’ll never do anything to trouble you.”
Seeing the harmless-looking Eire smiling so innocently, the hero party unconsciously lowered their guard. Lee Yu-seong, too, let himself relax. He couldn’t find even the slightest resemblance between the Silent Reaper and Eire, and her very presence felt soft and kind, elf to the core.
“Hilde is mine….”
The saintess, who had had her seat stolen for a moment, pouted unhappily.
After the meal and a bit of rest, just as the hero party was preparing to leave, Eire stopped Hilde. She looked fidgety and regretful, as though reluctant to let her go.
“I want to stay with you forever, but… Lady Hilde, you’re already bound by so many threads of causality right now.”
Eire wanted to remain with Hilde. But seeing her bear the same face as the goddess she knew, while being called by another name and seeming to have forgotten much of herself, she did not throw a tantrum. Soon her kin would be revived inside the fruits, too, and she had duties to rebuild her race; she could not simply follow Hilde around without purpose.
The hand clutching Hilde’s sleeve trembled slightly. Emotion surged up in her again. It was time to speak the words of parting.
“I will never forget this grace for as long as I live. Though my strength is meager, if you ever need help, I’ll come running.”
Hilde smiled at Eire. She had been a co-developer of the game, and yet she had never even known that the true form of the one called the Silent Reaper was an elf. Once again, she was reminded that these were not programs she had made, but living beings with individual personalities.
“Thank you. Stay safe and well.”
Hilde normally addressed everyone politely by habit, but for some reason she did not feel the need to do so with Eire. Though she looked like a grown adult and had lived for tens of thousands of years, she somehow seemed like a younger child than Hilde herself.
Seeing Eire off, the party departed and took multiple teleports back to the 8th Division in the blink of an eye.
After reporting to Austin, the hero party came out of the tent. From this point on, unless a new mission was assigned, the hero party was dismissed for the time being.
“It’s a little disappointing, but it was fun. We worked together surprisingly well.”
The saintess linked her arm through Hilde’s as she spoke. They had been companions who relied on Hilde alone and expected little else from the others.
But over those roughly three months, they had proven themselves trustworthy.
Even the hero, who had seemed nothing but cowardly at first, had done his best when faced with the threat of death.
The mage, who had bristled from the moment they met, had contributed greatly to the party by supporting them excellently and carrying out his duties in silence.
“We still have a lot of work left to do. Joining the hero party was the right choice after all. Before we gather again, I’ll need to do a lot of research.”
Eden had used Memorize after Black Snake opened the gate and fled, storing the mana arrays and design in his mind. Even the residual traces he had caught a glimpse of contained countless dimensional structures popping and flashing into being. They were pieces of information that would never have been accessible if he had remained in the magic tower.
“I feel like I was lacking in so many ways. Next time we meet, I’ll come back stronger.”
Lee Yu-seong had failed to reach the Silent Reaper at all, and for the first time in his life he had felt helpless in a way he had never experienced before. All he had managed was to keep up with the battle movements of the Silent Reaper and Hilde. He regretted that he had been lazy and never learned the many secret techniques he could have mastered.
He was ashamed of the years he had spent looking down on everyone around him, treating them all like NPCs because he had managed a few sword strikes. Seeing a world utterly different from the game on this journey, he realized at last that he had been nothing more than a frog in a well.
As the mood sank, Hilde opened her mouth.
“Oh, come on. You all accomplished something amazing, so why the long faces? You were all wonderful. You should be proud.”
At Hilde’s lighthearted chiding, smiles bloomed on everyone’s lips. Ironically, Hilde, the youngest member of the hero party, had quietly become the most reliable leader of them all.
“Heh. Even if we go back, we won’t be able to do what we want for a while.”
The saintess said with a laugh. The hero party had thrown the continent into upheaval—slaying a high-ranking demon, discovering a new race, and even resurrecting the Life Tree, which could shake the very foundations of the world. For the time being, they would have no leisure to spend on simple training.
There were many kingdoms across the continent that excelled in one field or another, but the strongest nation of all was, without question, known as an empire.
The empire’s true strength had never been fully disclosed, but the intelligence divisions of every nation agreed that it was at least powerful enough to unify the entire continent if it wished. For that reason, every country on the continent worked desperately to strengthen its own forces, yet none had ever managed to even come close to the empire.
And contrary to what one might expect, the empire did not raise the banner of war over the entire world. Instead, it continued to strengthen itself while publicly espousing pacifism.
Emperor’s office, Lahazer Empire.
As befit the office of the ruler of the strongest country on the continent, the room was furnished with carpets woven from golden thread and the finest pieces of furniture. Masterpieces worth hundreds of millions of gold hung on the walls, and the breeze slipping in through the slightly open window made the chandelier sway gently. An ornament carved from exceptionally rare ivory supported the pillar beside the door. Only with the emperor’s permission could one enter this office.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Though she was barely in her early forties, the empress looked to be in her late twenties. She rhythmically drummed her index finger on the desk as she studied the reports laid out before her.
A black-haired oriental man. A dark-haired mage with a cool expression. And a saintess.
At the sight of the saintess’s photograph, she frowned.
It was easier to judge a person’s expression from a photo when they wore a blank face, yet the image showed her smiling brightly. Her underlings had filed a report like this.
The empress briefly imagined the head of the newly appointed prime minister’s son in the palace before turning to the next photograph. In that instant, the striking report about the Life Tree and the existence of elves was shoved to the back of her mind.
“Hilde….”
The holy knight had long, straight hair that shimmered brilliantly.
Bright blond waves, long and lustrous, and clear blue eyes. The empress and Hilde shared nearly the same striking features, differing only in age. If anyone saw Hilde and the empress together, they would undoubtedly think they were sisters or mother and daughter.
The report recorded in meticulous detail the woman who had raised this girl, the country and village where she was born and grew up, and every other piece of information available.
The empress recalled the many exceptional talents standing watch atop the vast roofs of the imperial palace. Each and every one of them was the leader of a force secretly cultivated by the empire, comparable to Lee Yu-seong himself. As the woman who called herself the ruler of this continent, the empress briefly ran through multiple simulations in her mind, trying to determine the best course of action.
But one piece of information was still missing before she could judge everything.
“Do the celestials know of this being?”
It was time to meet this person in the flesh and see for herself.