Ep.11 - The Dark Mage and the World Tree (4)
***
The elves dragged me along with my eyes completely covered. Even though I was an outsider who knew nothing beyond the destination called the World Tree, they bound my eyes tightly so I couldn't memorize the route.
It was an unbelievably strict place. Even as I was hauled toward the World Tree, I constantly heard the clanking of armor, strained voices shouting to confirm each other's identity, and the sound of trees swaying in the wind.
"Hrrugh..."
Give me a break...
From the perspective of someone being marched along with his arms held by elves on both sides, it was incomprehensible. Even if you'd poked holes in my blindfold, I probably couldn't have memorized the entire route anyway. What the hell...
"Little one, you mustn't be rude to the World Tree-nim. Understood? The mothers and noona will trust you. Be good and courteous to the World Tree-nim, just as you were with our family."
Family, my ass.
What family in the world grabs your cock and squeezes it dry all day long?
I snorted in scorn at the absurd title, but the elves just smiled brightly and stroked my hair. They're really crazy bitches. Hopeless, incomprehensible crazy bitches.
"Our little one will do well. Serve the World Tree-nim well, okay?"
Crazy bitches. Serve? What am I supposed to do, spray a watering can at the tree? Or what, maybe the World Tree is alive and moves...
...Wait a minute.
Come to think of it, in comics and novels, there were quite a few cases where the World Tree existed in human form. There was one in a game I played long ago, too...
And then, as if summoned by that belated realization, the World Tree I faced was in the form of a woman sitting blankly beneath the towering tree, dozing off.
I noticed it as soon as the elves removed the blindfold. Unlike the other elves, she covered her body with tree trunks and leaves, and leaning against the enormous tree, the World Tree, was a sleeping woman... no, a girl.
"Mmm..."
She was pure white-skinned, her hair a green like the trees, and the way she rubbed her eyes as she woke up was exactly like an adolescent girl stirring from a nap.
"Haaahm..."
"World Tree-nim, we've brought the child you summoned."
The elves approached her, knelt down, and spoke. Dragged before them and now unintentionally facing the World Tree, I was momentarily flustered, unsure how to act in this situation, but—
"Ah, really?"
The World Tree's bold, cute voice turned my fluster into bewilderment.
"Hello! Hello hello hellooo~!"
She bounded over and ran up to me, then reached out both hands, grabbed mine, and shook them up and down rapidly, exchanging a handshake. Her enthusiasm was so intense that my still-bound wrists hurt a little.
"Everyone, you may go now! Bye~!"
The elves withdrew.
Beneath the tree, whose crown was invisible and whose size was beyond measure, only I and the nearly naked girl remained.
"I was seriously moved! The present you gave me, it was really the best!"
I couldn't immediately understand what this innocent girl was talking about, but I soon grasped the meaning of the "present" she had enjoyed so deliciously.
Is she talking about my... my semen?
I didn't know what she'd done with it, but since the World Tree was grinning and saying this, I found myself nodding in a daze. Things didn't seem to be going badly...
"Wanna see this? Huh? Hurry!"
The World Tree immediately took my hand and bounced beneath the thick tree trunk, heading somewhere. Of course, led by her hand, I immediately pitched forward and slammed my head into the tree. My legs were shackled; walking was manageable, but running was impossible.
"Urgh, mmf...!"
"Ah, it's because of that! Wait a moment~"
She seemed to place her hand on my shackles right away, and then—
"Tada! Done now, right?"
She instantly turned them to dirt. The thick leather shackles vanished in an instant, and freedom returned to my legs.
"Mmf? Hmff!"
Sh-she can undo them?
I immediately thrust my hands forward in front of the World Tree. If she could just undo the cuffs binding my hands, I could remove the gag and shout "Load" right away.
"Mmf! Mmf!"
Undo these too...!
But maybe she misunderstood the act of holding out my hands. She smiled softly, took my hand, and started running again.
"Okay, let's go quickly!"
"Mmmph!"
That's not it...!
Meanwhile,
Somewhere in the darkness, in a broken space...
Three women were walking there. An ancient elf whose entire body was tattooed as if wallpapered with them, a witch staggering with every step, and a saintess smoking a cigar with trembling hands even as she walked.
They walked through pitch-black darkness toward an unknown place. They trudged through the agonizing darkness without so much as starlight.
"How long are we going to walk...!"
The witch gnashed her teeth and shouted at the elf's back. There was a limit to how far she could walk while supporting her weight with an elongated staff. She was exhausted. The recoil of magic was devouring her.
"..."
Even at the witch's question, the elf only kept walking. Or rather, after the witch spoke, her pace seemed to slow a little. But the elf never stopped. She simply kept walking.
"I will die soon."
From ahead of the elf's footsteps, a clear, elegant voice emerged. At the incomprehensible words of the elf scattering violet mana, Chichi and Helen looked at each other.
"You two are strong. I've used up all my strength. Even the last bit I'd saved is gone. Now only death remains."
Suddenly, their vision brightened. Wind blew and sunlight entered the ambiguous space that had been devoid of any light.
"...This is?"
"This is where I stay. Come in. I have no intention of killing you."
A strange house appeared before Chichi and Helen. A round, wide, but miserable space where emaciated, dried-out trees bent their trunks and clustered together...
As the elf approached, the dead trees opened their bodies to serve as a door. The elf entered through that door, just wide enough for one person to pass, and after a moment of hesitation, Chichi and Helen followed inside.
"We are going to meet the World Tree. I've only stopped here briefly."
Unlike the outside, the interior was decorated like a home. And the elf, the owner of the house, carefully scanned the fairly well-organized shelves and tabletop as she packed her belongings.
Watching the elf's hair ripple with violet mana, Chichi swallowed once and asked,
"Wh-what the hell are you? What kind of elf are you!"
"You don't need to know. I'm a demon who will soon die and turn to ash."
As the elf said, the violet mana flowing from around her was somehow strange. It was pouring out of her body as if fleeing. For mana to escape meant its original owner would soon meet death...
"...Did you cross the line?"
"Yes."
This time, Helen asked the elf. And the elf answered briefly. Further conversation was meaningless. The two understood each other's situation.
"What do you mean, crossed the line? What are you saying!"
The only one seeking meaning in that exchange was the witch. She could not forgive a situation she couldn't understand. Even more than herself—she who had always been perfect and known everything—it was hard to accept that a woman drowning in alcohol and tobacco knew something in detail.
"You, you've been suspicious from the start... No, let's talk about that later. We'll address it separately later. Right now... Black Mage! No, Lich! You! Say something! What are you trying to do now?"
"I am going to end it all. You only need to follow me. If you don't want the other women to die, you will stay quiet and follow."
Darkness returned. The belongings carefully placed on the elf's curvaceous body set out on the journey to be with their owner one last time.
"...Altricia!"
And the owner's name—
Chichi shouted it one last time.
"That's your name, isn't it? That magic you used earlier... it's a magic recorded only in ancient texts. A legendary magic created by a genius wizard who lived centuries ago...! Just what the hell are you?"
Only Chichi, who had studied and researched her, who had taken the legendary wizard Altricia as her idol and walked forward, knew. The magic that legendary wizard had used, and her traces...
"..."
At the sound of that fond name after so long, the elf paused for a moment and looked back. Her eyes held not an expressionless, cynical gaze, but a sorrowful past.
"I discarded that name."
"Why did you become a Lich! You had everything! Y-you definitely... defeated the Demon King and returned welcomed by all the people of the world! So why..."
Even an elf, a long-lived race, does not live forever. She is a being who should have died long ago.
Altricia, a member of the legendary Hero Party, the most widely known wizard, a great wizard. A wizard befitting the word "strongest." A perfect wizard. Noble, with none to follow her, all praised her, all sang of her. They sang the tales of her and her companions.
"It's a story of no importance."
Altricia started walking again, scattering violet mana. Her gait never wavered. The legendary wizard was still magnificent.
"It's all a story of no importance now."
Altricia did not look back.
She only carefully caressed a small necklace she held in place of a staff.