Chapter 585: Miss Agartha
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 585: Miss Agartha
It’s a little-known fact, but the world of plants is far more intense, desperate, and cruel than the world of animals.
Some groves of trees, competing to be the first to catch a single ray of sunlight, grow so tall they bring about their own demise. A kudzu vine will then slither up a tree that grew with such desperation, covering and killing it like a snake. Some trees poison the ground around them, while some grasses endure that poison to claim the empty territory.
Plants, which may seem static and peaceful, are in fact waging war every moment to steal even a sliver of sunlight.
This war even occurs within a single tree. A branch growing on the lower part of the trunk, shaded by the dense leaves above, will ultimately fail to sprout new buds. Unable to stretch further due to the lack of sunlight, it withers away, leaving behind only a twig.
The bottom withers, the top flourishes. That is how a tree grows into the shape we know. The World Tree, being a tree, should have followed these rules.
But the Tree of Genesis was a Divine before it was a tree. It existed beyond the natural order of an ordinary plant.
Countless twigs spread out like a net. There were no leaves. They weren't necessary in a place where no sun shone.
However, in place of leaves, there were fields. Seedbeds were attached to the ends of the branches, where some kind of crop was growing. People carrying baskets walked carefully, step by step, along these branches to harvest the ripened crops from the seedbeds.
The seedbeds, growing on branches of varying heights, looked just like terraced fields, though the several-meter drop between each "terrace" was a problem. In any case, a crowd large enough to be called a "village" was visible.
Having four wings had paid off. Even while holding the Regressor, I managed to slow down enough to glide onto the ground. Their job done, the wings instantly withered and fell away.
"...You're late."
The Great Witch, who had been waiting below, greeted us with a sullen expression. I carefully set the Regressor down and replied.
"This was pretty fast for a first time, don't you think? Besides, I wasn't alone."
"...Whatever. You're late."
"No one was even waiting, what do you mean, late—"
I was about to brush it off when I noticed a crowd approaching our landing spot. The people on the branches swarmed toward us like ants, climbing ladders and swinging on ropes.
I suppose someone flying down with wings would be a strange sight. But their reaction was far too enthusiastic.
"It's the witch!"
"The witch!"
The people who drew near let out thunderous cheers. They had the decency not to climb onto the branch we were standing on, but their intense gazes and shouts made it feel like we were watching a performance.
It felt strangely good to be welcomed so warmly by total strangers. I waved back at them.
"Hello! Thank you all for the warm welcome!"
"Who's that? Get out of the way!"
"You're not a witch!"
How rude. Should I awaken as the King of Sins?
Ugh, there are too many people. I was in such a hurry to get down that I forgot to change my impression with the Mask of Agartha... I should have been erasing my presence.
The very "witch" they were cheering for had turned pale from her extreme social anxiety. The Great Witch fidgeted with her face, trying to endure it, but eventually gagged and moved behind me.
Her social anxiety had worsened in front of a crowd. Then again, one person is better than dozens. Maybe this was a chance to get a little closer...
"You... you handle it..."
The Great Witch shoved my back and hid behind the Regressor to avoid the approaching people. Regardless, the crowd began to close in.
"You're the witch who came from the cloud of leaves, right?"
"Ah, yes. That's right."
"We were asking the witch."
"And the witch has entrusted her answer to me. The only answer you'll get from her representative is this: piss off, you bastard."
Did I look like a pushover? The villager lunged at me, enraged by my words.
"You're not even a witch!"
"Neither are you!"
I dodged the villager's attack with a slight tilt of my head, then grabbed his entire face and slammed it into the ground. The villager, who landed headfirst on the branch, couldn't even make a sound as his body trembled.
Who did this mere citizen think he was, talking to me like that? I wasn't the Great Witch or Nevida. Did he think I was a pushover with everyone?
The most intuitive form of body language is violence. The now slightly calmer people began to whisper amongst themselves as they looked at me. I turned to the fallen man and asked.
"Anyway, why are you looking for the witch?"
"Well... we wanted to ask the witch for a favor..."
"A favor? What kind?"
"A potion that makes hair grow..."
"Wow. She makes potions like that? Witches are more amazing than I thought."
Once one person spoke up, others began to shout over each other.
"Our village was attacked by a leopard! We need a deadly poison to kill it!"
"We're here for our supply of Mining Dandelions. When are the witches coming?"
"My father is dying because mushrooms are growing on his body! We need medicine!"
"The crops on the branches haven't been growing well lately. Do you have any kind of fertilizer?"
The people waved pieces of metal or Alchemic Gold coins in their hands. Not quite grasping the situation, I glanced over at the Great Witch.
"...All sorts of ingredients grow on the Tree of Genesis, but we're short on things like minerals and metals... So we accept those and make things like medicine in return..."
"Ah, so it's barter? I guess mining would be difficult for a witch."
So they take requests and receive minerals as payment. It looked like a lot had piled up. This was more than I could handle.
But if I told them no right now, there was no telling how this crowd might turn. Desperate people tend to become radical.
"Alright, shouting here won't help me remember everything. Instead, please organize your requests and give them to me. I'll pass them on to those up there."
"Pass them on? To which witch?"
"The witches will choose. They each have their own areas of expertise. Wouldn't it be more efficient to gather everything at once rather than having them all compare notes?"
I didn't know if the witches would accept this many requests, nor did I particularly care. But these people would likely be satisfied just to have me take their written requests and would wait patiently.
"Wait, wait. Don't try to write on my body. Is there a village chief or a tribal leader here? A person or group that can represent you all."
"A chief?"
"This isn't a single tribe, so we don't have anything like that."
"As for a representative, there is... one..."
The crowd's gaze turned in one direction. Among the countless branches extending from the Tree of Genesis, one showed the most signs of human touch. It was a branch where golden ears of grain hung in place of leaves.
"The Paddy Branch."
The inhabitants of the World Tree's shade live on its branches. No matter how large the branches of the Tree of Genesis were, large enough to live on, a branch was still a branch. On branches that grew diagonally upwards, there was no such thing as flat ground. The short stretches of level surface were stairs made by humans fitting planks together.
"A village full of stairs. The quality of life here must be the worst."
As I grumbled while climbing the stairs, the Regressor spoke as if a thought had just occurred to her.
"Looking at you now, you're surprisingly interested in how people live."
"Huh?"
"Wherever you go, you seem to observe the lives of the people there. Is it because of that? Your title, King of Humans?"
"I've never consciously done it."
Did she think I enjoyed observing people? They just happen to be in my line of sight wherever I go, what was I supposed to do?
"Is that so?"
The Regressor casually moved on, looking around.
"By the way, where's that witch? Where did she suddenly go?"
"Wasn't she with Shei-ssi?"
"I don't know. She was hiding behind me, and then at some point, she just vanished."
I don't usually lose track of someone's presence. Have my senses dulled because of my injuries?
No, I hadn't lost her. She was right behind us.
She was following us, her presence concealed by the Mask of Agartha. She had hidden herself in the crowd, and no one was paying her any attention. With her witch's hat off, she followed quietly, and the people moved along with her, completely unaware of her existence.
...No one recognizes me. This is much more comfortable. The Mask of Agartha... it's useful.
The Mask of Agartha had three aspects: Truth (眞), Goodness (善), and Beauty (美).
Truth (眞) alters perception.
Normally, one can guess a person's gender or age by looking at their face, but the Mask of Agartha determines 'what I appear to be.' Even someone with a face like the Regressor's could be perceived as a man with this mask.
Goodness (善) determines impression.
Few people feel threatened by the face of a large, smiling dog. However, they would react with fear to a leopard or wolf of a similar size. The second mask of Agartha influences the sense of caution one feels from a face.
Beauty (美) reveals beauty.
It reveals and conceals the kind of presence that seems to radiate from a face—charm, charisma that captures attention, and an allure that tempts the opposite sex.
The Great Witch was currently wearing all three masks at once to avoid attention. She had lowered her presence as much as possible, drawing no one's gaze, and had blended into the crowd with the impression of a common girl.
This is my ancestor's mask... no, the face of Agartha itself. The power of a king, effective even on beasts, not just humans.
The ability to recognize faces wasn't exclusive to humans, after all. The effect would be much weaker, but still.
The Great Witch was using it for such a trivial purpose, but Agartha, one of the Five Sovereigns, had united the jungle with that power. She had subjugated the uncivilized barbarian tribes and brought them under her order—sometimes with beauty, sometimes with awe, and sometimes with the power of civilization. She had even tamed the beasts, the greatest threat in the jungle.
It was a power so potent it seemed like a far superior version of the Grandiomor royal family's ability, which merely influenced human social dynamics. The irony was that the lesser ability of Grandiomor had survived longer.
...I searched this jungle for hundreds of years, and to think it would come to me on its own. I never thought it would be in the graveyard of elephants... because you die if you go there. The Saintess must have seen through even the graveyard of elephants.
The Great Witch sank deeper into thought, recalling the Regressor's words.
Wait, but... if she got the mask from the graveyard of elephants, how did she get there?
"We're here! This is the Paddy Branch. If you go over there... huh? Wait, where's the witch?"
Only then did the people start looking around for the Great Witch. Despite her being right in their midst, they failed to notice her.
Ah. I'm so glad I have this mask...
The people passed by her as she sighed in relief, and their eyes fell on the Regressor. While the Regressor might have looked like a handsome man with the mask, now that it was gone and her hair had grown out a bit, there was no way she could be mistaken for a man. The people pointed at the Regressor and said.
"This person here looks like a witch, too."
"Idiot. She doesn't have a witch's hat."
"But her clothes are really unusual, aren't they? She has both her arms tied up. How strong must she be to have to seal her own hands? She must be an incredible witch!"
Overhearing their conversation, the Regressor shot me an annoyed look.
"...You explain."
"Ugh, you're both so difficult. Why is talking to people so hard for you two?"
This world was messed up. Both the Regressor and the Great Witch had abilities that far outstripped their social skills. They needed to be taken down a notch.
"Don't you worry. The witch is watching over you with her magic right now."
"Really? She didn't run away?"
"Why would the witch be scared enough to run away? She's someone who could turn you all into frogs if she felt like it."
"Still..."
"You're getting cheeky. Witch! Turn just one of them into a frog as an example!"
"Gasp! No, no! We're sorry!"
The people here treated the witch quite casually. Then again, in a jungle teeming with all sorts of magic and mysteries, a witch probably wasn't that mysterious of a being.
Frog food? Heh... It might be nice if all humans turned into frogs...
"They said they're sorry. Let's forgive them graciously!"
Tch...
She was actually going to do it. I can't even make jokes around people who have the power to make them a reality.
The people seemed a bit skeptical of my words, but there was nothing they could do. The crowd surrounding us headed toward a building that looked like a pavilion, erected in the middle of the Paddy Branch.
On a branch with no ground to build a foundation, one had to lay planks on top of pillars to create a level surface. That was probably why all the buildings were pavilions. Large pavilions had been built especially at the points where branches forked, where two branches could be used as supports.
Between the massive branches that made the sense of distance feel vast, the pavilion, adorned with cascading vines and thick leaves, was as beautiful as a scene from a painting. Of course, as with all works of art, actually walking through the scenery was exhausting.
Everyone panted as they walked up the branch, catching their breath in front of the largest pavilion. A moment of silence fell. No one gathered here seemed to think of approaching the pavilion; they just hesitated.
Then, someone spoke to me first.
"Excuse me, Mr. Representative of the Witch."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry to ask, but could you please go first?"
"Me? This is my first time here, and I don't know anyone in this place."
"But you came from the cloud of leaves. Those guys are strong and fierce, but they're respectful to people from the cloud of leaves."
Cloud of leaves? I looked up at the top of the Tree of Genesis and saw lush green leaves obscuring the sky like dark clouds. The people below must call that the cloud of leaves.
So that's what they called people from the Human Regime's level. I suppose to these people, beings like Nevida or the Great Witch really would seem special, as if they had descended from the clouds.
"And... we're a little scared of those who came from beyond the prairie. They came from the same place as Lord Muhu, after all."
And to the people of the old Manguo, the people in this pavilion were also 'special'. I asked again.
"What? The people here are from beyond the prairie?"
As if sensing it was the perfect time to tattle, people started chiming in.
"Ah, yes. That's right. Outsiders have moved into the pavilion of the Paddy Village."
"They're small but ridiculously strong."
"They act like they're the village chiefs! And they didn't even come from the cloud of leaves!"
It seemed they had a lot of pent-up frustration. But the fact that none of them were willing to step forward themselves suggested they were quite frightened.
If they didn't want to, I couldn't force them. I could open the door myself. Let's see.
"They're always going on about how they're The Human Regime. Just a bunch of show-offs!"
...Huh?
I paused in front of the pavilion. The Human Regime, that sounded familiar.
Feeling a strange sense of dissonance, I opened the door.
"Woof~. Sorry, but the master of this place is out right now-woof."
A voice that sounded like a preening animal came from inside. A dog beastkin in a pitch-black suit was sitting on a desk, greeting me.