Lament of the Phoenix
Oh dear, how concerning.
Earlier, I saw an elf who was already dead drunk and passed out.
Jed’s words made Heungmi perk up her ears.
“Uncle Jed! How did she die?”
The dwarf who had been a drunkard even before birth, Jed, explained with his chest puffed out.
“Hmph, that’s right. He drank so much his nose was crooked, to the point where even his own parents couldn’t recognize him.”
It was a typical dwarf-style joke.
But Heungmi, who believed every word, gasped in shock.
“Eek! Does alcohol really have that effect? And it even makes parents unrecognizable? That’s terrible!”
“……”
Rune shook his head while watching the scene unfold.
This misunderstanding had nothing to do with Heungmi; it was just pointless professional boasting from a dwarf.
To correct the error, Rune stepped in.
“He just drank too much and lost his senses. If he drank moderately, that wouldn’t happen.”
“Moderately?”
Rune nodded and continued.
“Wine counts as alcohol. And the black ale the dwarves drank at Perdkion’s lair last time is also alcohol.”
Heungmi tilted her head curiously.
“I remember. But I don’t know if that drink tasted good.”
The fox-eared girl had sniffed it once, wrinkled her nose, and shaken her head.
“Everyone said it tasted great, so they drank a ridiculous amount?”
Heungmi covered her mouth with her hand, showing a face full of disgust.
“They said the bitter taste eventually becomes sweet. It’s not something I need to know, though.”
Rune spoke while crossing his arms.
His sense of taste was quite refined; he had no choice but to sigh inwardly.
“‘I’ve been sober for a long time now. I can’t even touch an alleyway soju anymore.’”
The soju he had accidentally drunk in his past life still lingered in his memory.
The sharp, thick taste that slid down his throat!
Just imagining it made his mouth water.
But this remark accidentally struck a different chord.
“Rune, why do you know so much about drinking?”
Perdkion’s gaze sharpened. He looked at his little brother with suspicion.
“Don’t tell me… you?”
“No way.”
Rune stiffened his expression to deny the misunderstanding.
“I never drank. I’m telling the truth.”
Rune explained with genuine words that he had never touched alcohol.
But Perdkion, still not fully convinced, issued a stern warning.
“I’ll say this clearly. Before you turn five hundred, if you’ve touched a single drop, remember you’ll be stuck in Christina-nim’s lair until the time to drink comes.”
Rune kept his expression steady, but he couldn’t hide his awkwardness.
A full four hundred years of abstinence!
Humans only drink for about twenty years; he had to endure twenty times longer.
“‘I wish I had never known the taste.’”
That only made his caution rise for no reason.
Rune answered that he understood and brought up the current issue.
“First, let’s find Baekya. He was roaming around normally, but since he doesn’t wander around late at night, I’m worried.”
Perdkion nodded in agreement.
“That’s right. We should go check the places the guy would head to.”
Heungmi raised her hand.
“I went to the castle earlier and he wasn’t there.”
Dullahan and Jed added to the explanation.
“We searched outside the village too, asking guards and nearby elves, but we couldn’t find him!”
Clank!
After Dullahan also confirmed by nodding, Rune fell into deep thought.
Rune, looking blankly at the moon outside the window.
His eyes fixed on the giant World Tree’s shape.
“No way.”
Back then, Baekya had stared at the World Tree with sad eyes from Belianus’s house window.
That scene flashed through his mind like lightning.
“Could it be?”
Rune pointed toward the World Tree outside the window.
“Why would you go back there?”
Perdkion’s question was only natural.
The World Tree, the mysterious tree that nurtures life.
The bird that burns what is impure and is reborn anew.
Since it had a distinct personality and belonged to a different race, Rune couldn’t find any connection.
Rune shrugged and answered.
“I don’t know exactly. I just remembered Baekya looking at the World Tree with a gloomy expression before.”
There was something to it.
Rune smiled slyly, feeling that intuition.
“Maybe he’ll find the secret like he did in the Abandoned Mine Dungeon.”
“Hmm.”
Thanks to Baekya’s immortality, the secret of the Abandoned Mine Dungeon had been revealed.
Perdkion, who had experienced it firsthand, couldn’t completely deny it.
“‘I should step back a little here.’”
Rune deliberately raised the interest level and straightened his shoulders.
“If you don’t want to, I’ll go find Baekya alone. Nothing should happen in a place where the demon realm has disappeared.”
He was the one who had survived by setting up shop in hostile lands.
Confidence in handling any situation shone through.
But he wasn’t left alone in that position.
“How do you plan to look after such a huge tree by yourself?”
Perdkion clicked his tongue and replied.
As Rune had expected.
“Then, shall we all go together?”
Jed immediately accepted Rune’s suggestion.
“Yes! With such a clever bird, he’ll be found in no time, right?”
The group decided to examine the giant tree and send a message via Mokoji Stone, then set off.
***
The night when the full moon was still hanging in the sky.
Since the World Tree was enormous, they agreed to check one spot each and return, then dispersed.
“I keep thinking about the past.”
Rune thought this place, the elves’ cemetery far from the lively festival street, was especially eerie.
Alone, he remembered old memories.
Moments when he had endured everything and stood alone.
Times when he had existed alone in the darkness of a harsh world.
“All right, then.”
He slowly took a breath of the chilly moonlight air.
His senses had calmed.
Every current flowing around him brushed against his hyper-sensitive perception.
Rune, eyes closed, slowly reached out into the air.
Crack.
“……!”
The crack before shattering.
The fissure at the end of the crack.
Rune tapped the gold line with his finger and lowered his hand.
In ordinary situations, this wouldn’t appear.
It was something that crossed his mind only when he broke conventional understanding and expanded his senses to artificially adjust the density of mana.
“‘Those with the skill to find this aren’t common.’”
No, there wouldn’t be any.
Not because of skill, but for another reason.
“‘Those who can control attributes and wavelengths are the only ones who can enter. It’s wise to prepare for contingencies.’”
Rune rummaged through his spatial pouch.
What he pulled out was a World Tree sapling doll he had made with Rand.
It wasn’t perfectly shaped, but it took the form of Rune after assimilation.
Rune, who had infused mana into the doll, connected a thread of mana.
“‘If there’s something, I have to search all the way down to the roots of the tree.’”
The doll was tuned to the artificial mana frequency.
To ensure the barrier’s gold line wouldn’t disappear.
After confirming the crack and thumb, Rune pushed his hand into the gold line.
Shwaaack!
With a light no one could see, Rune vanished from his spot.
***
When he opened his eyes, a completely different landscape greeted him.
First, there were no graves.
In their place stood a field of blue, red, and white flowers.
Rune, waking up, surveyed the spot where the World Tree had been.
“This is… why is it like this.”
The World Tree standing tall in the flower field was dry and shriveled, filled with ominous energy.
Clearly Rune had infused life into it, but how had it become this pitch-black old tree?
His brows furrowed involuntarily.
Suddenly, Rune felt a presence and turned his head.
It was a familiar face.
“Amanda?”
“……”
A freckled girl in pajamas stood in the flower field with hazy eyes.
The elf girl’s mouth opened.
[The one who walks in darkness.]
A faint, echoing call reached him.
Amanda’s voice, not quite herself, echoed through empty eyes as if under someone’s will.
[I am the eldest tree spirit here.]
Amanda’s withered fingertips pointed at the dying World Tree.
[Another of my mothers.]
Rune looked back at the sky after seeing the flower field and the tree.
There was no moon or stars.
Only an eerie sky filled entirely with the color of night.
There was no light except the three-colored flowers on the ground.
At that moment.
“Ppi.”
A small flutter of wings descended from the old tree and headed toward Rune.
“You’re here after all.”
“Ppiyap.”
The white bird blinked its eyes and obediently landed on Rune’s shoulder.
Rune scratched Baekya’s beak with his fingertip and opened his mouth.
“So, what was the reason you recruited Baekya and brought me here?”
Amanda’s eyebrows twitched slightly at the overly calm words.
[……Salvation.]
The girl who looked up at the withered old tree shed tears in a hazy face, echoing like a prayer.
[Help those who were abandoned before they were even born.]
Rune, who had chewed on each word, felt an unpleasant sensation.
“So, what you mean is, you want me to save the souls of those who died before birth?”
Rune’s red eyes swept over the flowers.
Each flower shook by itself and sparkled faintly.
“Why me?”
There was Christina, the strongest gold dragon, and the elf king.
Even the World Tree was there.
Her voice flowed through Amanda.
[Because you are the one who handles the dead.]
Indeed.
Rune exhaled shallowly after realizing something.
“It’s because of Heungmi.”
Amanda nodded slightly.
Rune finally understood the true nature of these flowers.
“They are the souls of dead elves.”
A bitter smile formed.
The flowers planted endlessly.
Upon closer look, he heard a crying sound.
Or a small babble, like that of a child.
Each flower was one soul.
Amanda opened her mouth.
[A place made by sacrificing the World Tree’s roots before it turned black with the demon realm. So that no one could invade…]
And soon, with sad eyes, Amanda looked up at the tree.
[That tree can no longer hold on.]
Part of the World Tree that gave off an ominous atmosphere.
No, the part that had been… Rune turned his gaze toward the World Tree.
“So, the tree shaped like the World Tree was originally its root, right?”
Amanda obediently nodded again.
Rune ran a hand through his hair.
“I understand what you’re saying.”
“‘That’s why Baekya kept looking at the World Tree with a gloomy expression.’”
Suddenly, Christina’s words came to mind.
“The phoenix has eyes that pierce the essence.”
Just as she said, this small bird had surely sensed the situation long ago.
The puzzle pieces fit together in his mind.
“This tree is the World Tree’s root that turned into a demon, right?”
Black darkness gathered in Rune’s hand.
“Ppiiii……”
Baekya, with somehow sad eyes, looked up at the tree.
Whoosh!
The tree, feeling hostility, began to move its massive body.
Gooooooo!
A terrifying roar echoed from a large knot hole.
Rune calmly examined the tree and continued with a flat voice.
“……That tree will definitely die. All the sacrifices until now no one knows.”
[I already knew this. It’s all right.]
Amanda spoke in a composed voice and clasped her hands together like a prayer.
Flash!
A soft light enveloped Amanda’s body.
Then, snowflakes began to fall from the cloudless sky.
Softly, the snow falling on the flowers covered them like a quiet blanket.
[This snow will become a quiet blanket.]
A sad voice quietly chanted.