Have You Gone Mad Wanting to Die?
...Had she gone completely mad with the desire to die?
KWANG!
The topmost floor of the Academy.
A thunderous impact shook the chamber that had been built for one person alone — Merni Elfosis, eldest daughter of the Elf Kingdom.
Cracks spidered across the solid-wood desk, swollen with three hundred years of absorbed life mana, and a flurry of magical documents went scattering through the air.
"You're telling me you still haven't found her?!"
"Th-that is correct. We've issued a wanted decree extending even to the other races, but we simply cannot locate..."
"That's the tenth time you've said that to me! The tenth! An entire month has already passed!"
A full month had gone by since Ria and Asuka vanished together.
The Elf Kingdom, its princess kidnapped, had plunged into shock and thrown every ounce of its strength into combing the entirety of the World Tree.
And yet they hadn't found so much as a single strand of Ria's hair — let alone Asuka.
Even after Merni had exerted her own power to the limit.
"Ha... get out!"
"Yes, my lady!"
The elf knight, cowed by Merni's bellow, hurried out through the door, and she dropped into her chair with a nerve-frayed jerk, tilting her head back.
She had thought it was her chance.
'This was never a chance at all!'
She had waited three hundred years for this day alone.
Ever since she'd been stripped of her place as the Child of the World Tree, she had searched desperately for a way back — and after three years of searching, she had made her 'choice'.
If she couldn't do it herself, then she would have someone do it in her stead.
And so, the original Merni had vanished forever.
And she had been reborn somewhere new.
Regret? No. She felt none.
There had been no other way.
To push Asuka — that monster — out of her place, there had been no choice at all.
At least, in the end, she had succeeded in stopping Asuka's rampage.
'You turned out exactly the same as me, in the end.'
Merni had truly believed her younger sister Asuka was a good person.
Blood could not be deceived, after all — so surely, however greedy she might be, at the very least she was different from Merni herself.
That she would carry some small guilt over taking the position.
But she had been wrong.
The only difference between Asuka and Merni was whether or not there was someone ahead of them.
Merni had had such a person. Asuka simply hadn't.
And that was precisely why Asuka could afford to be so at ease.
"By the way. How long are you planning to stay lost in thought?"
Merni whipped her head around, irritation flaring.
A man stood in the shadows, scattering a violet gleam from his eyes.
After three hundred years, Merni had finally found someone who could aid her — and she had loosened part of his restrictions and set her grand plan into motion.
"...Things have gotten complicated."
The problem being that the plan had utterly fallen apart.
"Complicated? Is that all you have to say? This is exactly why I told you to stop holding back. Kill that woman — Lily — now!"
"Weren't you the one who told me to come back here?"
The Sword God tilted the Release Sword idly, indifferent, but Merni continued to glare daggers at him.
Violet demonic energy began to seep, thread by thread, into the room.
"You were the one who insisted we kill Lily Elbrit politically. I opposed it. But it was you who released this power of mine, so I agreed to go along."
"Yes. That's right. But it worked, didn't it?"
Merni's goal was simple.
Create, by any means necessary, a world in which 'Asuka never becomes the Child of the World Tree'.
That was the reason she had become one with this dungeon — the very essence of her existence.
The moment that condition was fulfilled, this counterfeit world would collapse, and Asuka would lose her qualification as the Child of the World Tree.
And the one who took that seat would, naturally, be Merni.
"As a result, Lily fled. Yes, the plan to bind her politically failed, but a part of the plan succeeded."
Asuka's position had been shaken, and Ria Elfosis branded a scapegoat criminal.
No matter what Lily tried now, her honor would never be restored.
The problem was that the two of them were currently nowhere to be found.
The plan — to bring them both under political control and slowly usurp their positions — had gone completely sideways.
"Which means it's your turn to deliver."
"Hmm. I'm afraid I'm not up to it."
"...Ha? That's all you can manage?"
Of the three outsiders who had entered this place, the reason she had chosen this man was simple: he was strong.
A human whose skill was equal to the Asuka of the outside world.
Above all, the sword he carried held power strong enough to bring even Asuka down — so she had undone that seal first and foremost, and yet...
"If you keep behaving like this, I can simply take it back."
"And then you would be trapped in this place for all eternity."
"...Killing you would hardly be any trouble at all."
"How unfortunate for you. As it happens, I'm the kind of man who revives even after death."
A sneer curled across his face.
Merni gritted her teeth, and after a protracted battle of wills, chose to take a single step back.
With things as they were, this man was her only option.
"...Then why can't you do it? Is that Lily woman really that strong?"
"Do you truly not know?"
"All I can see is what's shown to me, limited as it is."
Merni could only glimpse the strength of the Sword God and Lily in fragments.
What she had observed put them at nearly equal footing.
Lily seemed perhaps marginally stronger — but judging from her personality and behavior, Merni hadn't believed she would lend her any help. Hence the Sword God.
There was also the fact that she'd been tempted by the sinister weapon he possessed.
The Sword God fell silent for a moment.
"I don't know."
"What?"
"It is certainly true that Lily Elbrit is strong. Just not strong enough to defeat me."
"Then why—"
"The problem is that 'ring' she carries."
The moment Lily had donned the broken ring, she had become overwhelmingly stronger.
No — 'stronger' didn't begin to cover it. It was as though her very species had changed; she'd unleashed power from an entirely different dimension.
"Whether she could use it in its degraded state is an open question. But if she does use it, I cannot win."
If it came to that, even if the World Tree itself rose against her, nothing would be able to stop Lily.
"......And if she doesn't use it?"
"Then it's possible."
With their current gap in strength, it was more than possible.
At the Sword God's tone of cold certainty, Merni fell into thought.
It wasn't that she trusted this man's word.
He was supremely skilled — but he was also a man who had already failed once.
Even with the weapon placed directly in his hand, he had failed to capture Lily.
And yet, precisely because of that, she couldn't help but trust him.
'You can't trust people. But you can trust a blade.'
The power held within that sword was certain.
"Then I'll arrange a suitable place for you. If we can locate Lily, I'll undo your seal to the maximum so you can take her—"
"...It is already too late."
"?"
The Sword God shot to his feet and stared into empty air.
The 'message' that outsiders could see.
As a native of this place, Merni should have had no way of perceiving it — but after centuries of being one with the dungeon, she had come to understand at least something of it.
"What is it? Did they find Lily?"
"Ria Elfosis has been placed on the candidate list. And she is the leading candidate."
"...What?"
"Thanks to that, we know her location. But at this rate, there is no hope. Lily will without question use that power."
Defeat was all but certain.
Resting his hand on his 'sword', the Sword God spoke flatly, and Merni stared at him blankly for an instant before despair swallowed her whole and she clutched her head in her hands.
This couldn't be happening.
"Why— why did she get her power back? Because of what?!"
"One of Lily's abilities. Even I cannot know the reason."
"...There has to be a way! You're supposed to be the strongest there is!"
"I regret to inform you that no one can defeat a calamity. You may fell a mountain, but you cannot fell the world."
"......"
It was hopeless.
According to this man, the three of them were the strongest among the outsiders.
Only outsiders could enter the dungeon — so even if more came in the future, none would be stronger than these three.
And even if someone did come, there was no telling whether they would possess the same 'uniqueness' these three did.
'So in the end, I can't push Asuka out.'
Tap.
"Are you giving up?"
"......."
"If you stay as you are, you will be trapped in this place forever. Repeating, over and over, the loss of your position to your own sister."
She had already lived through it dozens of times.
Each time, she'd wondered whether she could manage it without leaning on anyone else.
But dozens of attempts had amounted to nothing, and every single time, Asuka had stolen the title of Child of the World Tree from her.
"...Then what am I supposed to do? You said you can't win against her no matter what."
Grrrk.
"Stop posturing with that precious sword of yours and actually DO something!!!"
KWAAAANG!!!
The desk shattered to pieces entirely.
And yet the Sword God's expression didn't so much as flicker.
"...Do you trust me?"
"No. I don't... you son of a bitch... gear-dependent hack... all show and no substance..."
Merni cursed him under her breath, head bowed — but he calmly asked again.
"Let me rephrase the question. Do you trust this 'sword'?"
"...? Huh?"
Vuuuum...
At some point, a sword — a demon sealed within — had materialized before her.
A blade scattering a savage, violet demonic aura.
She swallowed hard, all but entranced by the violet radiance spreading through the darkened room.
"Take the sword. Then I will make it possible."
"Poss...ible?"
"That's right. Everything you desire. All of it."
They say that when you're backed into a corner, you shake hands with the devil.
Merni had laughed at that saying when she was young. Now, it didn't bother her at all.
After all, she had already made a contract with the demon called the 'dungeon'.
Merni reached out and laid her hand upon the sealed sword.
KWAAAAAAAAANG!!!
The world transformed.
After moving Asuka and Ene somewhere safe, I stepped into the innermost reaches of the World Tree.
I'd layered several tiers of security magic on top of a sleeping spell just in case — short of something extraordinary, they'd be fine.
Bypassing the guardian spirits and the maze, I reached the second chamber at speed and opened the door.
Creeeeeak...
Unlike back then, when it had been wrapped in layer upon layer of barrier spells, the door swung open with almost suspicious ease.
I strode straight inside.
"Just as I thought. Here you are."
Deep within the chamber, alongside the bound guardian spirit, lay a woman — tangled and held fast in hundreds of tree trunks, sound asleep.
'Asuka Elfosis.'
Unlike the student version of Asuka, the Asuka bound here had grown up considerably.
She now stood as tall as her elder sister, and the roundness in her cheeks had largely melted away.
All that was left now was to carry her out, I supposed.
If she couldn't be brought out, then an identical Asuka would simply be waiting in the same spot back in reality.
Either way, the request to find the Child of the World Tree was, for all intents and purposes, complete.
I reached out my hand.
KWAAAAAAAANG!!!
"...?"
I frowned as demonic energy erupted, amplified to an astronomical degree.
The source of the power — Eloni Academy.
I immediately conjured my magic into the air like a projected hologram, and—
"...Have you gone completely mad with the desire to die?"
Beyond the screen.
A black World Tree had swallowed the Academy whole.