Drop a Fireball In, and Even a Corrupted World Tree Can't Move
The war between the elves and the dark elves had settled into a brief lull—not because either side had asked for a truce. These two peoples had been one race, once. The rift between them now sat hopelessly past anything words could mend.
The dark elves had corrupted even the World Tree, and one of the two had to be destroyed. The moment either side showed weakness, the other would take it as a chance to rip them out by the roots, so there was no reason at all to let the fighting go quiet. The dark elves held the advantage besides. The elves still outnumbered them, but under the protection of the corrupted World Tree a single dark elf was strong enough to face three or more, and they didn't hesitate to use forbidden black magic. Their stats had already grown far beyond what they had been. Before sunset, the elven village would have fallen to them.
If I hadn't shown up.
Boom—boom—boom. The Fireball detonated and kicked off a chain of secondary blasts, killing in a single hit a dark elf whose health bar had been stupidly inflated and nothing else. Too bad for him. However high his HP climbed, the attack power of my strengthened Dragon's Staff was more than he could stomach, and in truth the Supreme Holy Water was what decided it.
"Attack +100 is way too broken, isn't it?"
Strip that off, and could I still send them in one shot? I was curious, but I had no desire to hunt with the Supreme Holy Water's options switched off. Give me efficiency over romance any day. And besides, as the first person solo-clearing a level-1 five-star dungeon, clearing it fast and overwhelmingly was the romance. So I savored the moment.
Honestly, it didn't even qualify as a crisis. The instant shards of Ice Arrow and Fireball started flying, the dark elves didn't spare a thought for finding me and killing me—they were too busy running. The elves, as if they'd locked me in as an ally for certain, had ringed me in and were fighting to the death. Thanks to that, nothing threatened me at all.
I'd walked into this dungeon on the assumption that all I had to do was not get hit. And here I was, standing perfectly still, while meat shields volunteered to eat every attack that came flying in. My role was exactly one thing: sweep up the endless tide of dark elves.
The single worry—mana—had been solved completely by a refill of twenty percent every ten seconds. Thanks to the Dragon's Staff's mana-cost reduction of twenty percent, one cycle dropped from 40 mana to somewhere around 28 or 29, and I was recovering more than that. I also had +3 mana on kill. Against a handful of enemies it wasn't much help, but a glance put this crowd at well over a hundred. Packed together like that, they were nothing but scarecrows to me—no different from mana potions. And if that still wasn't enough, I had mid-grade mana potions on top of it. The dark elves hadn't just handed me a lull. They were fleeing without so much as a look back.
"We held them."
"..."
The elves murmured it quietly into a forest gone still. Not many of them were left alive—eighty, if that. They didn't even have the breath for a victory cry, and the bleak result of the battle drained me along with them.
"Thank you."
One of the elves stepped forward to speak for the rest and offered me his thanks.
"Not at all. I, too, am a friend of the elves. Restoring the corrupted World Tree is my destiny as well."
"...Thank you."
"Where is the corrupted World Tree?"
"Not far from here. There is a place called the World Tree's nest, where the forest's energy gathers. Right now it is the dark elves' encampment."
"Ah."
"If we fight there, the dark elves drawing directly on the corrupted World Tree's power will be twice as strong as they are now."
"We still have to fight. Are you just going to go extinct at their hands like this?!"
I shouted it at these elves who looked like they'd already given up, and I put my heart into every word.
"You're right... We cannot give up like this. But their power, wielding black magic, is far too great."
The viewers conceded the point. An S-rank quest meant it was that difficult. A dungeon is somewhere a player is meant to clear. If the game just let you spoon yourself onto a fight the NPCs were already waging to a draw, what would be the point of the player existing? So I put real feeling into this quest, and into every line I spoke to the elves.
"I am a mage who carries the blood of dragons."
"...I knew it. So what I saw truly was Dragon Words."
I cashed in on the class I'd rolled for something like 3.2 billion. If you can milk it, you milk it. Only then did a little life creep back into the elf's face, and I took him by the shoulder.
"No race can defeat me in the face of magic."
"Yes. It certainly looked that way...."
At the courage I'd breathed into him, the elf's shoulders trembled. It was fear.
"I was afraid... as if I were looking at a real dragon."
"That dragon's power stands with you. Long ago, elves guarded the Dragon's Forest alongside the World Tree. A dragon does not abandon them."
"Ah. Successor of the Dragon."
"Successor of the Dragon!"
What. One elf suddenly burst into tears and dropped to his knees, the others went down behind him, and just like that my immersion cracked a little.
I'd been half-assing a little roleplay, and it felt like the elves had swallowed it whole. Not a bad spot for me.
"Let us go. Even if I must offer up this body—even if I lose my life—I will restore the corrupted World Tree."
"Waaaaaah!"
At last a cheer tore out of the elves whose morale had been dead on the floor.
"Whew."
I let out a breath of relief. If these guys had lost their nerve and refused to do anything, I'd have been left holding the whole thing alone.
"Please protect me. I have yet to fully obtain the dragon's power, so I am weak—just as before. Think of me as the World Tree. Protect me, and me alone, and I will sweep away every last dark elf."
"We will protect you. By any means. Even if it costs a life."
"Me too."
"I'll protect you first!"
"Let's go!"
And so the elves' march began.
There was a reason for the rush.
"Fourteen minutes left. Hurry, hurry."
Fortunately, it wasn't far. The edge of the forest. Below the cliff lay a vast basin, and standing in it a single tree of staggering height, with what looked like five hundred dark elves gathered around it.
"So that's why I couldn't see where the World Tree was."
It soared into the sky, but the earth had been carved out just as deep, so from up here it didn't show. The drop looked like it would take a long, long time if you went over.
"It's down there."
Elves and dark elves, at home in the forest, didn't seem to consider a cliff like this much of a problem. I did. And looking at the terrain, I couldn't help tilting my head.
"Why are they all standing right next to it?"
"Well, they are under the protection of the corrupted World Tree..."
"Is there any reason I have to go down there?"
"Well..."
"Feels like if I shoot from here, it'll hit."
I lobbed a Fireball. It traveled a fair way off with a low whoosh, but it still struck that enormous World Tree. The ground rumbled. Sure enough, true to its name, the World Tree seemed alive—and in the same instant, attacks came screaming up from under the cliff.
"How dare you!"
"He attacked the World Tree!"
"Kill him!"
The dark elves poured out ranged fire. The distance was considerable, but whether it was simply what their race was, the shots flew true. Threatening enough—yet the elves shut them down. I could see dark elves scrambling up the cliff as well. That was all I needed. I had their measure.
"So, uh... once, when I was little, I had this thought."
The camera followed my gaze up into the blue sky.
"In the countryside where I lived, there was an anthill made of dirt."
"Watching the ants boiling around inside it, a thought just hit me."
"Ah. I wanna pour boiling water in there."
Fwoosh. Fireballs stitched themselves into being across the empty air, formed high in the sky, and vanished down into the hollowed earth. My eyes stayed on the sky, so the viewers couldn't see a thing. Neither could I.
Fireballs appeared and disappeared. Appeared and disappeared. I just kept doing it, endlessly.
"Aaaaagh!"
"The World Tree—the World Tree!"
"It's burning!"
"It's hot! Save me!"
I could hear attacks flying in, desperate, somewhere below. None of them reached me. Thanks to the speech I'd given with such feeling, the elves who had tasted hope of victory blocked with everything they had. And it wouldn't have mattered if I ate one blind shot. I'd die, sure. Supreme Holy Water brings you back once.
KRA-KOONG! The World Tree thrashed this way and that, and the ground began to heave over. Even so, I didn't stop. Five minutes left, at least. For that stretch, my offense was untouchable.
CRACK. The shuddering earth split, and from every stretch of ground within a kilometer of the cliff above the World Tree's sanctuary, countless thorns speared upward. Choked gasps, raw howls, every kind of scream—and I wasn't spared either. No. I couldn't have dodged it.
Maybe the truer way to put it is that I never tried to avoid it. Before the next attack could follow, the World Tree fell.
Five level-up chimes in a row, and with that I closed out my flashy debut as a Dragon Words Mage.