Master Spoke to the World Tree
Anyway, I ended up having tea with the World Tree.
What came out of her body, we drank as tea… Even if her true form was a tree, and even if what we were brewing were leaves that grew from that tree… to me, the World Tree was a woman in the shape of an elf. The whole thing left my head spinning. Still, it tasted good, so I kept drinking.
Being able to taste anything inside a dream was strange, sure—but it didn’t feel all that miraculous. Not when I was already sitting through the far more overwhelming reality of having tea with a being close to a god. After you’ve bitten into something truly scorching, a moderately spicy dish barely registers. Same idea.
More than that…
I used to turn and run the second a superhuman showed up on the battlefield. Now I’m having tea with the World Tree—someone even superhumans can’t meet no matter how badly they want to. Jade, you’ve become a hell of a big shot. Not that I asked for it…
There had been times I’d had to stake my life just to buy a few seconds against a superhuman. But no mercenary takes the job because he wants to die. The truly stupid ones blunder into fatal situations without even realizing it and get themselves killed—but even they aren’t looking for death. They’re just fools. Avoiding a fight with a superhuman had always been the sensible choice for me, too. So the fact that a high-ranker who had once been hopelessly outclassed by those monsters was now sharing tea with a near-divine being… well, it was astonishing.
…Or it should have been.
…Elves, World Tree—I’d rather not get tangled up with any of them.
Connections above your station bring death more often than profit. People like to think networking is always a good thing. That’s a delusion. Hyenas looking to feed off someone else’s connections are everywhere. The higher the person, the thicker the pack of hyenas circling them—and those hyenas wage a silent, bloody war among themselves. I’d seen plenty of green mercenaries try to leverage a lucky acquaintance with some big shot, only to be stripped to the bone by the scavengers around that person. Getting networked with a near-god? Just thinking about it made my stomach hurt. If this hadn’t been a dream, I was certain it would have hurt for real.
“Whew. It’s gotten quieter outside.”
Teacher Las was probably tearing around out there. That was as far as my guesswork could stretch. Still, sitting in total silence felt awkward, so I opened my mouth.
“…Couldn’t you just send me back?”
“Oh my. How cold. Meeting like this is fate, isn’t it? Parting so soon would be a shame.”
“Ah… right…”
If the person across from me had been some rural noble, I would have barked Fine by me! and walked out. Unfortunately, she was a being close to a god, so I couldn’t. More than that—someone like her might still be useful to Sera. That possibility alone forced me to watch my step.
For their child’s sake, parents will read rooms they never used to read, smile and nod like sycophants, and bow their heads if they have to. Sera was my disciple, not my blood—but she was precious to me. I could do all of that for her without hesitation.
Thinking about it, the days when I’d been alone really had been easier. Back then I could live however I wanted and take the consequences myself. Now that I wasn’t alone anymore, that freedom was gone. Live as you please, leave as you please—what could be freer or better? There had been good things about that time, no question.
But…
The reason I could fight so desperately right now was precisely because I was no longer alone. The solitary version of me had never been desperate. There had been no reason to be. That life had been comfortable, yes—but hollow. Free, and nothing more. Something essential had always been missing.
And now? That emptiness was gone. I was living this moment desperately, purely for someone else’s sake. In that sense, I was glad I wasn’t alone. Even without freedom, I could feel with absolute certainty that I was carrying something more important than anything else.
“So, Jade… is there nothing you’d like to ask me?”
“……? You can just call me Jade, you know.”
“Mmm… Let’s save that for later, shall we? Heehee.”
“……?”
She was clearly hiding something. But I wasn’t in any position to press a World Tree for answers, so I let it go. Sometimes ignorance really is safer. In the mercenary trade, one of the first maxims you hammer into your skull is that idle curiosity gets your head cut off. Of course, the freeloading types never bother learning it—and they die for it every day…
“So? Nothing you want to ask?”
“…….”
Of course there was.
“World Tree, can you help us in the coming war against the Demon King?”
“Hmm. I was certain you’d ask which of the Hero candidates is the real Hero… I was wrong. Why didn’t you ask that?”
“Because it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t matter?”
“Whether my disciple is the Hero or not, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s the most precious person in this world to me. If anything, deep down I’m desperately hoping she isn’t the Hero. That way her path might hurt a little less. But the talent she carries… from what I’ve seen, it belongs to a Hero. That’s why I don’t want to know. The moment it’s confirmed… I’m afraid even I will start looking at her as the Hero instead of as a child. That’s all I’m afraid of.”
If there is one being in this world you must never trust, it is yourself.
The deepest disappointments and despair I’d ever felt had almost always been directed at myself. Using “I had no choice” as both excuse and justification, I had made choices I later regretted—dozens of times, hundreds of times. So I knew better than anyone: the thing that never does what you want, the thing that betrays your own heart more thoroughly than anything else, is always yourself.
That is why I constantly guard against myself.
I watch my own laziness. I curse my own pathetic weakness. I hate my own powerlessness.
And that is why I am afraid.
Afraid that the moment I accept my disciple is the Hero, even I will stop seeing her as a child and start seeing her as the Hero…
No matter how certain present-me is that “I would never do that,” I cannot swear that future-me will keep the faith. Past-me had betrayed my expectations often enough. Future-me could do the same.
So I chose not to ask.
The most rational path is never to give anxiety a chance to be born in the first place.
“…Remarkable. I never expected an answer like that.”
“So—can you answer my question?”
“I don’t believe I can offer any great help. That is the answer I can give you.”
“…Why?”
Even for the World Tree, the world’s destruction couldn’t be a good thing. If the Demon King went on a rampage, even her barrier would struggle to hold.
“Or can your barrier withstand the Demon King’s attacks?”
If that were true, having Sera flee into the World Tree’s barrier would be far better than letting her fight until she died. The Empire had slapped the “Hero candidate” label on her and turned her into a sacrificial lamb. She had no obligation to die for them. What had the world ever done for her? What had the Empire ever done for her? There was no reason she should shoulder everything and throw her life away for their sake.
If there was a road of escape, I was the kind of man who would gladly tell Sera to take it and run. Plenty of people would point fingers at me for that. I didn’t care. Those same people would be the first to tell her to fight and die for their convenience. When two sides stand in absolute opposition, one has to break. I had no intention of breaking, so we would simply go all the way. I paid them no mind at all.
“Unfortunately, even my power cannot stop the Demon King’s fire.”
“Then why refuse to help?”
…Because only then will the Demon King drown in the poison of his own arrogance.
For a Demon King who possessed no omniscience of his own, there was only one way to approach that power: the World Tree’s reactions. By watching how she moved, he could guess what her omniscience had shown her. He knew it. She knew it. And so, in the end, the World Tree never fought.
It wasn’t that she had done nothing. She could not regress perfectly the way Sera did, but she could leave knowledge for her next self. In her own way, across countless chances, she had struggled to create an opening for a reversal—just as Sera had. All of it had come to nothing.
No matter how hard she fought and clawed, none of it had ever mattered. Everything remained trapped inside the cage of omniscience. Worse, her own actions had nearly tipped the Demon King off to the Hero’s power of regression. Each time that happened, the Hero had cut their own throat without hesitation—because if a being so close to a god ever learned of regression, the worst possible ending might arrive.
In the end, the World Tree could do nothing.
She could only despair.
Her own power of omniscience left her with nothing but frustration, despair, and collapse. Watching her, the Demon King had always been certain: omniscience itself had prophesied his victory. And so, this time as well, she intended to burn to death in that merciless fire.
She had never experienced it herself, but countless previous selves had left the knowledge of their final moments. She knew it was the most savage, cruel agony in the world. Yet if she died in that fire, the Demon King would never even imagine that omniscience had been broken. That would be enough. That would be enough, the World Tree told herself.
And so she could not tell Jade the truth.
That his desperate heart for his disciple had touched omnipotence—and that because of it, her omniscience had shattered.
“You think of me as a being close to a god, but I am only an imitation. My power is omniscience. I can know everything. But that is all I can do. I have no omnipotence, and so compared to a true god I am not even half a being. I am a weak creature who can only know and accept. I cannot work the great miracles you imagine. I cannot stop the Demon King. In the end I am only a single tree. A being close to a god? It doesn’t suit me at all. I am a pitiful existence that can only know and simply be. That is all I am.”
Ah… I hadn’t meant to say that much.
Perhaps resentment had been building inside her without her noticing. And now that hope had appeared, what she had kept buried had spilled out. Even for a World Tree who had lived so long and seen so much, the admission made her face burn.
But… yes. With this, will that radiant soul come to hate me? That, too, would be a fitting “punishment.”
Perhaps she had secretly wanted it. Wanted someone to rage at the near-god who could do nothing—to shout, Is that all you can do?! And you still call yourself close to a god?! It would not erase her sin… but even blame would have been a small mercy for a crime that could never be forgiven…
And yet…
“Hmm. So that’s how it is.”
“……?”
What?
“As expected, nothing in this world comes easy. I already figured it wouldn’t be simple, but knowing just how hard it really is… well, it’s giving me a headache.”
“I…”
“Yes? What is it?”
“Is… is that all?”
“……?”
Jade tilted his head as if he genuinely didn’t understand what she meant. The World Tree could tell he was completely sincere.
“…….”
Faced with that reaction, she could only stare at him with an expression she couldn’t even begin to describe.
Ah… so that’s roughly how it is?
The look on the World Tree’s face was one I’d seen plenty of times before.
It was the expression green knights wore on the battlefield—the ones who thought they were something special, who believed that if they just stepped forward the whole war would end, only to slam into reality. Of course the World Tree was incomparably greater than any green knight. But the feeling was similar.
She had been praised and exalted as a “being close to a god,” after all. It wouldn’t be strange if that had planted a will to live up to the title. And with a power like omniscience, she would have had no choice but to end up this way.
“Don’t tell me you think this is your fault?”
“Eh… well… I am called a being close to a god, so…”
“Did you claim that title yourself?”
“Th-that’s not… no…”
“Or did you summon the Demon King? Did you help him get summoned?”
“I never did any such thing!”
“Then what exactly is your fault here?”
“I… failed to save the world?”
“World Tree.”
“Y-yes…?”
“Are you a god?”
“Pardon? Ah. No.”
“Then why is failing to save the world your fault?”
“…….”
It was an easy trap to fall into. Anyone who has ever been expected of something has tried to live up to those expectations and overreached. Ordinary people realize I’m in over my head and quit soon enough. But the World Tree was far too special. She had been pushing herself without the slightest awareness that she was pushing herself. The result: even knowing she was not a god, she felt guilty for failing to become one. The sickness had grown that deep.
Probably because of that omniscience of hers.
The more you know, the more confidence tends to surge—doesn’t it? Knowing a lot can be useful, but knowing too much makes everything complicated. Simple problems start looking difficult. Magicians waste money and time on bizarre research for the same reason. If even human mages do that, a World Tree carrying the divine power of omniscience would see the world as even more tangled, and fail to solve even simple problems by overcomplicating them. That wouldn’t be strange at all.
What she needed right then was one dumb friend standing next to her to cut through the fog. Did the World Tree have any dumb friends? Of course not. So she had fallen into a vicious cycle—blaming herself, blaming herself again, and abusing herself for it.
Hmm. Feels like the distance between us just closed a lot.
This was better.
Earlier she had felt so distant and overwhelming I’d almost gotten motion sickness.
Anyway—
Right now, in this moment,
I decided to say the words I most wanted her to hear.
“……!”
The moment she heard those words, the World Tree understood.
Her true heart.
Her true wish.
She had…
wanted it.
Anyone would have done.
Please…
just tell me it isn’t my sin,
it isn’t my fault,
it isn’t my wrongdoing.
That was what she had wanted.
But she had never dared to hope for it.
She was called a being close to a god, and she truly possessed the power of omniscience. Because she was special and had still done nothing, the failure was her sin and she deserved punishment… That was what she had told herself. So she had given up. She had never even allowed herself the wish. No one would ever appear to tell her she was without sin, that she had no reason to be punished. She had no right to hope for such a thing. She had always cut the possibility off before it could even take root.
But…
There was someone.
Someone who told her it was not her sin—
that for a being who was not a god to feel guilt for failing to become one was strange—
a person who said those words to her.
No matter what anyone claimed, for the World Tree that was a miracle itself.
And so, even after living so long that she had never once experienced a true miracle, she clung to it. The way a newborn child clings to its mother’s arms…
This is bad… this is dangerous!
She was crying so desperately I couldn’t bring myself to push her away, so I let her use my arms…
Why does a dream have to feel this vivid and real?!!!!!!!
I already knew perfectly well that I was a man… but the beast inside me was starting to thrash harder and harder, and I was about to lose my mind…
What if this whole dream world had actually been created by a Succubus Queen? For a second the delusion felt so convincing I almost nodded along.
That was how overwhelming everything about the World Tree felt…
Go to sleep, you beast inside me! Please! Read the damn room!!!!!