The End of the Rebellion
"I'll help too!"
Just as my mind was starting to go hazy, Celia stepped in. Before I knew it, she had gently laid her hand over my right one where it pressed against the World Tree. Sharp as ever. She kneaded the back of my hand for a moment, then, as if she had figured it out, carefully regulated the magi pouring into me so it wouldn't thrash around inside.
That alone was enough. I could hold it back.
Time crawled past. Every last scrap of the World Tree's magi had flooded into my body. Circulating it as mana was impossible; even my infinite reserves, strained by mana fusion, couldn't keep up. For now I simply packed it down inside me, wrapping the accumulated magi in a shell of mana.
Whether I could actually absorb it remained to be seen. Maybe I had underestimated the World Tree more than I thought.
"Hah. The World Tree really does live up to its name."
"So it's finished, then."
Isis lifted his head beside me. I looked up as well. The black blotches that had marred the tree moments earlier were gone; only clean wood remained.
Yes. This should be enough.
"Where is that Dark Elf, Piel?"
"Judging by that state of hers, it's already over."
The Dark Elf who had tried to fuse with the World Tree lay sprawled on the ground, her body drained bone-white. She had lost her power completely and been cast off.
With that, Piel's rebellion was finished.
The Elf King and I approached her fallen form.
"How pitiful you've become, Piel."
"Cough. Cough. Hhh... hhh... How could this..."
She still didn't understand why she had lost. Compared to Ella, her intelligence might actually come out on the losing side. Elves weren't any different from anyone else—idiots existed everywhere. No, wait. Elves lived far longer, and this Piel looked old enough that she should have known better. Maybe the average elf intellect was just lower? Ella alone was evidence enough. I shouldn't generalize, but somehow it kept happening.
Either way, this wasn't our place to interfere.
"You were simply too lucky for too long."
"Hic... hic... I only..."
"You only wanted to become the Priestess—that's what you'd say, isn't it? But is that really true? You simply clung to the office itself. Being a candidate for Priestess is only that: a candidacy. It is not the office. You prepared nothing else. You obsessed over becoming Priestess alone."
I hadn't known the man could talk like that. Same-species business, I supposed—he was properly furious. Of course, Piel wasn't exactly in her right mind either. Having already risen against the crown once, she twisted her face at the king's words.
"So everything I lived until now is to be denied?"
"What denied it was you yourself. You should have carved out another life on your own. Did you truly believe life would simply go the way you wished? I myself was never meant to be king. I was a candidate for Priestess."
"!!"
"Exactly your situation. And look. I became king of the elves. And what are you?"
Hold on. This king was a candidate for Priestess? His face was feminine enough, true, but that chest was a sheer cliff compared to mine—the difference between a mountain and an underground bunker.
"Wait a second. The Priestess is supposed to be a wo—"
"I don't know how things work among you imperial girls, but the World Tree's Priestess is a station granted by the World Tree's choice alone, regardless of sex."
"Ah."
I was tempted to rip those ears clean off.
"How can you tell me to give up so easily? Not every elf is like the Spirit King!"
True enough. Not every elf was like this one.
"Even now you dig in your heels and talk back. Unbelievable. Fine. You're different. Cases like yours exist. And what is the result? The thing lying here right now. A Dark Elf who betrayed her own people and the World Tree—trash, in other words. That's you."
Wow. He was tearing into his own subject without mercy. The lessons he'd picked up from me hadn't gone to waste after all—when you mock someone, mock them thoroughly. The king was the type who put what he learned to good use. I almost liked him for the first time in a while. For a pointy-ear, he was better at this than the Emperor. Our Emperor just took heads on the spot; at least this one drew a clear line, so even the council couldn't complain.
"If Your Majesty had cared for me even a little—if you had looked after me as kin—things would never have come to this!"
Oh. Now there was a shocking revelation. If Piel shared the king's blood, then the Priestess's seat was ultimately tied to the elven royal house. Losing it to Shariel would naturally breed deep resentment. That still didn't justify betraying the entire race, of course.
"Yes. Perhaps it would have been so. But I am the Elf King. The Spirit King is the father of every elf. I have no reason to single you out as my own blood."
"Then Shariel! Why did you favor Shariel so much?"
Had the Elf King played favorites? It didn't look that way. That pointy-ear tore into everyone equally; he didn't love one side over another.
"Piel."
"I was always second to you! Until you appeared, every elf who once looked at me turned their eyes to you!"
That bad? Shariel must have been quite the talent. If she was that outstanding, what else could anyone do?
"Piel, I—"
"I was so jealous of you! Everything I struggled over, you did so easily! It made me furious—I couldn't stand it!"
An elven sob story. Celia, bored already, whispered against my ear.
"The emotional blackmail has started, that one."
"Just watch for now. Nothing good comes from sticking our noses in."
No need to get involved.
"All of you betrayed me! I wasn't the one who betrayed anyone!"
"Piel. You're under a serious misunderstanding right now."
Shariel stepped forward, placing herself between us and Piel, who looked ready to force herself upright again. Restoration of the World Tree was nearly complete; other elves could arrive at any moment.
"Misunderstanding? Trying to pity me now that I'm dying? I don't need it!"
"No. I'm talking about you. You're under a serious misunderstanding."
"What?"
"I worked harder than you. You keep thinking the other elves switched to me because I was more talented."
You really couldn't listen to only one side. Shariel had her own story. Villains always shared one trait: they rationalized themselves as the victims. Even in defeat they scrambled for reasons why they had no choice but to become the villain.
"That's not true?"
"It means I couldn't stand losing to you, so every night I went to the World Tree and communed with it."
"L-Lies. Then what about the other elves?"
The other elves. She should choose her words carefully.
"They must have seen me going to the World Tree every night. They saw me working harder than you and changed their minds."
"L-Lies! Lies!"
Piel shook her head. No. She refused to accept it.
"Knowing the truth and still rationalizing it away—that's always been one of your uglier habits."
"N-No. That can't be. It can't... Th-Then... what was I... what was all of it for... sob... hic..."
After a long stretch that looked like regret, Piel no longer had the strength to speak. Her eyes closed.
"Piel. You were my dearest friend."
"She's already dead."
Isis said it flatly to Shariel, who was still trying to comfort her.
"Ah. So she monologued about how hard she had it all by herself and then just up and died."
"In the end she never understood that she brought it on herself."
"Then what happens to Piel now?"
What would the Spirit King's judgment be?
"We bury the matter. It's the last mercy I can offer her. We'll simply say it was the work of the New World Group."
Isis's expression was bitter. Even without affection, a blood relative's death left a sour taste.
Either way, Piel's rebellion ended there. She had seemed to regret it at the last moment, but she was already dead. That was the end reserved for the defeated. From the instant she became a Dark Elf, from the instant she fused with the World Tree, Piel's life had been over. Having become part of the World Tree and then been cast off without even the chance to serve as nourishment, her body was nothing more than a dying branch.
As for the New World Group members I had captured, the elves killed them in ways that were anything but kind.
"P-Please, just kill me!"
"Cruel punishment for those who coveted the World Tree!"
Enraged by the New World Group's attempt on the World Tree, the elves inflicted tortures they had never even used on the imperial soldiers who once invaded the Great Forest. They threw the black mages into the mana springs reserved for elven interrogation and purified the mana from their bodies wholesale, sealing them behind walls of mana so they could never escape—left to die in agony. Anyone carrying magi would never endure that without mana fusion.
The World Tree was smaller than before, but that was only because it lacked mana and had regressed in age. Given enough years, it would recover.
And I decided it was time to leave. Having smashed the New World Group yet again, I had no reason to stay.
"So. You're leaving now?"
Walking near the World Tree, Isis asked carefully.
"I've finished everything I came to do."
"But are you... all right?"
All right? Ah. He meant absorbing the World Tree's magi.
"Can't you tell by looking? I'm fine. Something on the level of the World Tree doesn't bother me."
The World Tree wasn't a real problem.
"Drawing lines on a squash doesn't make it a watermelon."
"What?"
Was he calling me ugly right now? Picking a fight out of nowhere. Maybe the World Tree needed to burn again before he learned some sense.
"That immense magi that poured out of the World Tree has already changed what you are inside. Covering the surface with mana changes nothing."
"Enough. It's not more than I can endure. I'll have it under control again before the war."
It would take a little time, but that was fine.
"Take this."
"What is it?"
This idiot Elf King handed me a bottle of strange liquid. Exactly the size of a liquor flask—the same sort of glass vessel they used for Elf's Dew. It looked like water, but glittered with something like dust suspended inside.
"Sap from the World Tree. A single sip will ease your body. It should settle the magi thrashing around inside you. When it runs out, come back—or around the time it runs out, I'll send more through Shariel."
"Isn't this just juice?"
"Just drink what you're given. If you snap, we'll never be able to handle you."
In short, insurance against me going mad from the magi. There were limits to how little you could trust someone. A massive dose of some tree's magi wasn't going to turn me into an idiot. The Demon King's fragment had surely felt the impact, but I could endure it.
Thump.
For a moment something flexed near my heart. Still, what Isis had given me would probably help.
"If something like this were enough to make me snap, I'd have snapped long ago. Don't worry. Since you're offering, I'll take it."
Gifts should be accepted with thanks.
"And go to the Emperor. Tell him that the subjugation of the New World Group will be carried out together with the Empire."
"Understood."
The matter of the Great Forest was finished. Come to think of it, in a single week I had wrapped up both Libelt and the Great Forest. Next, then—I could return to the Empire and take it easy for a while.
Olivia needed a rest.