The Kidnapping of the World Tree (1)
“So delicious!”
The World Tree picked up another macaron, stuffing both cheeks full until she resembled a chipmunk hoarding nuts for winter. The crisp, intensely sweet outer shell, paired with the cushion-soft layer of decadent cream nestled in between, was nothing short of divine perfection. Unlike the days when she had merely maintained a vague concept of what flavors were supposed to be, experiencing a dessert in her true physical form yielded a taste of pure transcendence.
“Mmm-nom.”
Scarcely had one disappeared before another vanished into her mouth. Hours had slipped by since she had first nestled down in the very heart of the World Tree. Tasting macarons for the first time since manifesting an avatar had proven an obsession from which she simply could not pull her hands away.
She lifted a delicate pink macaron and examined it with wide, glittering eyes. Its adorable size, its plump, fluffy shape...
“Did Ju-ttak bake this? This is truly the peak of cuteness in the entire universe, it really is...”
It was a masterpiece of a dessert, pleasing to both the palate and the eye.
To the elves, the World Tree was an absolute deity deserving of eternal veneration. In their ancient scriptures, she was invariably depicted as a vast, all-encompassing, benevolent entity. And in truth, throughout the rolling centuries, she had genuinely strived to understand the ever-evolving cultures of mortal life.
“The speech style of this century is so fascinating. The more I use it, the more addicted I become, honestly.”
The slight catch was that this century happened to be the Gallery Century. Having fallen utterly under the sway of forum slang, the World Tree now spoke pure, unadulterated board dialect in everyday life.
Just as her fingers reached for yet another macaron—
Rustle, dash!
“Hm?”
A rustling patter echoed beyond the thick curtain of boughs. Halting midway through picking up the sweet, the World Tree poked her head curiously through the braided vines. Yet there was nothing in sight.
“How peculiar. I could have sworn something was there, really.”
She was almost positive she had caught a glimpse of twitching ears in the distance... Assuming her eyes had merely played tricks on her, she turned to retreat inside—
“Hush.”
“Eep?!”
A shadowy, masked figure surged from the undergrowth. Infiltrating the hollow of the World Tree in the blink of an eye, the intruder scooped her bodily into a large burlap sack and hoisted it over their shoulder. Before she could even muster the will to resist, the World Tree had been cleanly abducted.
Life is all about timing.
Which is to say, when conviction strikes, one must possess the audacity to stake everything on a bold gamble.
“Heh.”
The very second VampireTillIDie peeled herself away from my side, I pounced on the opening without hesitation, setting my grand escape from the abandoned castle into motion. Slipping out of the bedchamber, I sprinted blindly down the sprawling corridors. After five relentless minutes of dashing, I finally arrived at what appeared to be the fortress's grand front doors.
“Ju-ttak is a free man!”
The exact instant I thrust the heavy doors open with a triumphant roar—
Flump.
Something soft and slender buried itself into my chest. Or rather, it would be far more accurate to say that something had snared me in a crushing embrace.
“Where do you think you're going?”
VampireTillIDie tilted her head back, peering up at me with half-lidded, crimson eyes. Despite being considerably shorter than me, she hoisted my entire frame into her arms as effortlessly as a feather.
“Come now. Let's go lie back down.”
“Ju-waaaah...”
Scooping me up in an effortless princess carry, Erzsebet casually tossed me back onto the massive bed. Forced into an undignified swan dive across the silk sheets, I found myself right back at square one. First escape attempt: complete and utter failure.
“Wasted prime board browsing time on a doomed breakout, damn it.”
To make matters worse, Erzsebet's surveillance grew ten times stricter. The unblinking stare she fixed upon me radiated a chilling, immovable resolve: I will never let my walking juice box escape.
Conceding defeat, I gave up cleanly and navigated straight to the Best Posts tab. If wading through the bottomless flood of general threads was casual reading, the Best Posts were mandatory literature. Just as I was about to methodically devour the front page without missing a beat, an absurd title caught my eye.
Ju-ttak, come to the negotiating table immediately!
Otherwise, you will never see the World Tree again!
“What is this garbage?”
The title was far too flimsy to qualify as proper bait. It certainly didn't feel worthy of conquering the Best Posts page. Wondering how on earth it had accumulated so many upvotes, I scrolled down to the comments.
Of course, not a single soul bought it. At least, not until the World Tree's official static IP, 137.7.32, materialized directly in the comment section.
The elves scoffed, brushing off the poster with unbridled mockery. And why wouldn't they? Who was the World Tree? She was a living chronicle of ancient history, the sole majority shareholder who provided the mana supply for the entire elven race. She was hardly an existence that could be bundled up and carried off by a couple of amateurs playing kidnapper.
The slight complication being that it was 100% genuine. Before long, another Best Post from the very same author hit the front page.
We are not playing games!
Ju-ttak, show yourself at the negotiating table this instant!
Do you truly wish to never see the World Tree again?!
“Wait, it's real?”
How on earth had they pulled that off? Once the World Tree personally certified the claim, the gallery users swarming the thread exploded into a frenzy.
The elves—whose entire civilization was a one-trick pony relying solely on the World Tree—were thrown into absolute catastrophe. The World Tree had been abducted. To put it without exaggeration, this was a doomsday scenario threatening the very survival of their species.
Naturally, the elves erupted in righteous fury, frantically pleading with the rest of the gallery for assistance...
Naturally, they were utterly ignored. In fact, the thread took a sharp left turn, devolving into a cheerful celebration congratulating the World Tree on her newfound freedom.
For centuries upon centuries, the World Tree had suffered ceaseless torment trapped in that elven hive. For once, defying the community's usual thirst for carnage and chaos, the gallery rallied together in genuine, heartfelt congratulations.
Amidst the madness, the only ones drowning in sheer panic and despair were the elves.
Well, there was one other faction floundering in utter confusion: the kidnappers themselves.
“That's what happens when you pick the wrong crowd to blackmail.”
Of all the targets to snatch, they grabbed a World Tree that had fully evolved into a clear-eyed lunatic, and then tried to shake down an anonymous internet forum? They had miscalculated on a catastrophic scale.
“Did you think I've only dealt with trolls once or twice?”
I had never seen the handle 'LoveDarkness' before. Most likely a fresh newcomer who had only recently stumbled into the gallery, now completely blindsided by the sheer, unhinged toxicity of the local user base.
“Still, best not push the trolling too far.”
Drive them too hard, and the newbie might ragequit the forum entirely. Deciding to set the games aside for a moment, I initiated contact with the kidnapper.
“Are they looking for assault rifles or something?”
Virtually every extortionist who tried to hold something over my head followed the exact same playbook: either demand modern military hardware or try to leverage their way into taking over forum administrative authority. Naturally, I assumed these kidnappers would demand something along those lines.
Yet their ransom demand defied every reasonable expectation.
“Triangular rice?”
Did they mean triangle kimbap?
A while back, I had botched an order quantity while stocking up on triangle kimbap. I had only meant to buy 10, but accidentally slipped an extra zero onto the number and ordered 100 instead. Having no choice, I tossed the remaining 90 onto the open marketplace, where they vanished without a trace before I even noticed.
“Back then, nobody even posted a review.”
Not a single gallery user had uploaded feedback or mentioned buying them, so the incident had quietly faded from my memory. Turns out, the buyers were these exact kidnappers.
“If that's all you want, sure, whatever.”
To pull off a high-stakes heist, bagging the literal deity of the elven race, only to demand seaweed-wrapped rice balls as ransom. Shrugging, I ordered a batch of ten from the shop and routed the parcel directly to their coordinates.
For someone who had barked out demands with such blustering bravado, the shrinking, timid tone of their reply was almost endearing.
10 Triangle Kimbap have been successfully delivered!
Once the package went through, the chat went dead for a brief lull. Then, a fresh response popped up from the kidnapper.
They clearly possessed remarkable stealth and combat prowess, yet their behavior on the forum was bizarrely clumsy, naive, and hopelessly unaccustomed to internet culture.
“Somehow, I feel like I know who these guys are...”
Between the screen name, the shadowy demeanor, and the pointed ears that had briefly flashed in the corner of their uploaded photo, the pieces were beginning to align. Right then, as I was piecing together their identity, our assistant moderator, Full-Health Elf, chimed in over private chat as if struck by sudden realization.
“Dark elves?”
Weren't they the exiled branch of elves driven out into the wastelands by their kin in centuries past? I had only ever heard vague rumors about them; to see them surface like this caught me entirely off guard.
Just then, barely a few minutes after the delivery—having presumably devoured the entire stash of kimbap—a new comment materialized on the board.
“Excuse me?”
Just when I had written them off as clumsy greenhorns, the presumed Dark Elf, LoveDarkness, suddenly bared their fangs.
Abandoning El-Ladh, the ancient elven homeland, to cultivate their own Sacred Tree from scratch.
With those two lines, LoveDarkness detonated a colossal bombshell of apocalyptic bait straight into the heart of the gallery.