The First Tremor
The first sign was so small that everyone nearly missed it.
"Hey? There's a crack here!"
It was one of the five elf children who discovered it first.
What the child had found was a crack in one of the barrier stones placed around the outskirts of the village.
It was one of the supplies sent by the Elf Coalition. The Magic Tower personnel had personally positioned and installed the barrier stones.
Since this was a newly established village that hadn't even properly set up its defenses yet, the barrier stones served as a vital minimum safety measure to keep out beasts and any potential monsters.
Still, the question was whether a single small crack could cause any serious problem...
It might allow a bit of mana to leak through the fissure and slightly increase mana loss, but it wouldn't really affect performance.
So everyone simply assumed it must have gotten cracked during installation and brushed it off without much concern.
At first, that was what they all thought.
Only one of the personnel dispatched from the Magic Tower continued to watch the crack in the barrier stone with a somewhat serious expression.
But the second sign was far more blatant.
One side of the herb field had withered and died overnight, turning pitch black.
It wasn't from lack of moisture, nor was it due to disease or pests.
The leaves had crumbled to dust, and the roots had shattered like ash.
The spirits refused to approach the ground.
Even the small wind spirits that usually perched on the heads of the elves working in the herb field and played tricks now veered away from that direction, no matter who was present.
"This is strange."
Hyacinth murmured quietly.
She crouched in front of the herb field and rubbed the soil with her fingertips.
Black dust clung to her fingers from between the withered roots.
"It doesn't seem like a disease..."
“...”
Luiana watched the scene in silence.
Her gaze was calm.
But the tips of her fingers, not holding a sword, twitched ever so slightly.
Something was trying to approach this place.
And it was certainly not a good presence.
A faint malice seemed to coil around her body, and Luiana's heart sank.
It wasn't yet enough to draw her sword.
However, since this was happening in the place where her elves lived, she couldn't simply let it pass.
At Luiana's request, the Magic Tower personnel were summoned immediately.
Among them, the elf who spoke the least stepped forward first to examine the soil.
Her name was Erna.
She was one of the three dispatched from the Coalition branch's Magic Tower and the first to kneel before the sacred tree.
She was also the one who had stayed the longest to observe when the crack in the barrier stone was first discovered.
She scooped the blackened soil into a small glass vial, inserted a silver needle, and placed it on a crystal plate.
A faint light flickered at the tip of the silver needle.
Erna's expression hardened.
"This is..."
Alex turned to her.
"Do you recognize the reaction?"
"It's too early to be certain, but... as expected..."
Though Erna spoke that way, her voice already carried near-certainty.
She took out an old notebook from her robe.
It was filled with dense writing and diagrams.
Mana wavelengths, ley line interference, spatial distortion, gate precursors.
The words were familiar to Luiana.
In her previous life, towers and gates had always stood on the boundary between opportunity and loss.
This time, it might lean closer to loss.
Sensing Luiana's gaze on the notebook, Erna fell silent for a moment.
She looked like a doctor standing before a patient's guardian with bad news.
After glancing back and forth between the notebook and the crystal plate, Erna took a small, resolute breath.
"There is a possibility that these are precursors to a tower manifestation."
The moment those words fell, the air around them changed.
A few children who had been peering from a distance were caught by Hyacinth and pulled back.
Once even the children disappeared, the space sank into a heavy silence.
Only then did Luiana narrow her eyes and ask,
"Precursors?"
Erna couldn't answer right away.
Her grip tightened on the corner of the notebook.
"Right before a tower appears, the ley lines shift first. Then the space begins to twist in response."
"And that's what's happening now?"
"These are still just traces. The problem is that these traces usually only gain meaning after the tower has already risen."
Erna looked at the blackened herbs.
"I've studied this field for quite a long time. Others called it useless."
She tried to smile briefly, but her face remained stiff.
"The village must be relocated."
Hyacinth's hands froze on the children's shoulders.
"Gates form near towers. They start as small fissures, but soon monsters begin to emerge. Unless the tower itself is conquered and destroyed, the gates will grow increasingly unstable."
"What if we leave it alone?"
Luiana asked.
In truth, she already knew the answer.
It was simply a question born from a desperate desire to cling to even the slightest possibility.
But the reply was exactly as expected.
"A break will occur."
The faces of those who knew the word hardened at once.
Even those who didn't understood enough from the atmosphere alone.
It was not a good word.
"Monsters will pour out all at once, and the surrounding mana will become contaminated. This isn't something a single village can withstand. The entire surrounding forest could be destroyed."
Luiana turned toward the sacred tree.
The massive tree looked no different than usual.
Soft green mana flowed between its leaves, and its branches swayed gently in the wind.
Yet that very tranquility now felt suffocating.
"How much time do we have?"
"We can't know exactly. At the shortest, a day. At the longest, it will likely be within a few days."
Someone swallowed hard.
***
Every resident of the village had gathered.
The Magic Tower personnel, Alex, and Seris were there as well.
This place was still too crude to even be called a village.
There were only a few houses, the perimeter was poorly defended, and the paths hadn't been properly cleared.
But to the elves, it was a precious nest where their beloved mother resided.
Perhaps that was why Luiana's words struck them like a blow.
"Leave."
Her first words were short.
She had already decided this in her heart.
She didn't want to send everyone away either.
However, when she had requested help from the Elf Coalition, the response had been that all raid parties were already climbing the tower and that they strongly advised the village to evacuate.
'Yes. Send them away for now. Once the area recovers someday, they can return.'
She didn't know how long that would take.
But Luiana and the elves were long-lived.
They had plenty of time.
It was a statement she could make because she held onto the hope that the day they would be together again would come.
Yet the moment those words reached them, the elves' expressions wavered.
Their thoughts were different.
"Mother."
Hyacinth spoke first.
Luiana looked at her.
Hyacinth was the elf who had wrapped a coat around Luiana the moment she first opened her eyes.
She was the one who had approached her before anyone else in the village.
And now that same woman stood with a face that refused to yield even an inch.
"At least take the children."
"I refuse."
Hyacinth's answer was immediate.
Normally, she would melt into a smile at the slightest touch from Luiana.
But this time, she was stubborn.
Luiana frowned slightly.
"Did you not hear the situation?"
"I heard it."
"Then leave."
"I cannot leave Mother behind."
At those words, the other elves nodded as well.
Even the elders did the same.
The young children didn't fully understand the situation, but they clutched Hyacinth's skirt and looked up at Luiana.
Yet their eyes were clear.
They did not want to leave.
Luiana pressed her lips together.
In her previous life, she had been used to giving orders.
The strong decided. The weak followed.
In the battlefield known as the tower, it was a cruel but efficient order.
If one happened to form a party while climbing the tower alone, it was an unspoken rule that everyone naturally followed without needing to speak it aloud.
But the elves before her now were not climbers.
They were the ones who called her Mother.
That fact weighed on her with strange heaviness.
"I cannot move."
Luiana said.
"I am a Dryad. I cannot stray far from my partner tree. If you stay, there will be more for me to protect."
"Then I will protect as well."
Seris said, stepping forward.
"I am a knight."
"You have people you must return to. Why do you say you will stay and protect?"
"I have received instruction."
Seris knelt on one knee.
"I cannot leave my master behind."
Luiana looked at Seris.
Just days ago, this knight had been rendered speechless before Luiana's sword path.
Even now, she was far from being called strong.
But her unwavering eyes were not bad.
They were not bad, and that only made Luiana angrier.
"Why won't any of you listen?"
Luiana's voice was low.
The elves flinched at the anger mixed within it.
But none of them stepped back.
Seeing that, Luiana felt an unfamiliar sense of helplessness.
She had a sword.
She had mana.
She had memories from her previous life.
Yet she could not do the one thing most needed right now.
She could neither take the children and flee nor step forward and leave herself.
A threat was approaching, yet her other enormous body remained rooted to the ground.
Her grip tightened around the sword hilt.
The handle creaked faintly.
***
The tower appeared that very night.
It began with the air beyond the forest growing hazy.
Like moonlight rippling on water, a single point in space began to shimmer gently.
Then, through the gaps in that shimmer, a black line appeared.
It was as if an image that did not yet exist in reality was forming first in a mirror.
The blurry outline gradually rose higher, erecting darkness like a pillar.
And at some point, it became real.
A tower.
Its height was not particularly impressive.
Compared to the tower Luiana had climbed to the top of in her previous life, it looked like a child's toy.
The number of floors probably wasn't high either.
In terms of rank, it would be mid-low to mid-tier.
At that level, a single skilled climber raid party could conquer it with enough time.
But this was not an outpost of a climber guild.
The majority of elves in the village were not combatants.
Elders, artisans, herbalists, spirit mages, children.
And even among those who held swords, only Seris and a few guard knights had sufficient real combat experience.
The fact that the tower's rank was low brought no comfort.
The first gate opened at the base of the tower.
A black maw tore open, and from within, a beast's foreleg burst forth.
It had the twisted shape of a wolf.
Instead of fur, black scales sprouted across its body, and turbid mana dripped from its maw.
Two more, then three crawled out after it.
One of the children swallowed a scream.
Before that, Luiana moved.
"Activate."
The moment the word left her lips, the entire sacred tree began to glow.
Soft green lines spread along its trunk and branches.
The same light rose within Luiana's own body.
The Cartein-style Magic System, split between the sacred tree and her flesh, awakened simultaneously.
Light fractured inside the trunk, and the mana that had been sleeping beneath the roots was drawn upward.
Luiana saw the flow around the village's outskirts overlap with her vision.
She let the mana signatures belonging to the elves pass and marked only the turbid mana as red dots.
In the next instant, the mana stored within the sacred tree's branches slowly turned their heads toward the hostility.
A translucent soft-green dome formed around the village perimeter.
It was less a wall and more like a sensory net made of countless lines.
The moment a monster touched the grid, light gathered between the sacred tree's branches.
Then a cannon-like explosion tore through the night.
BOOM.
A soft-green mana projectile streaked across the forest.
The head of the first approaching monster vanished without a trace.
The two that followed were pierced and collapsed before they could even regain their footing.
Black smoke rose from the remains.
What reached the village was not the smell of blood.
Only the scent of burned, turbid mana.
The Magic Tower personnel held their breath. Alex clutched his forehead.
Seris, who had drawn her sword and stood tensed to the limit, realized there was no room for her to intervene. She let out a hollow sigh and lowered her arms.
The elves breathed in relief.
But it was only for a moment.
BOOM.BOOOOOOM.
The unending roar of cannon fire.
Monsters emerged from the gate, the sensory net detected them, and the sacred tree fired.
The village was safe.
To be precise, the inside of the village was safe.
Yet that safety came accompanied by tremendous explosive noise.
The children buried their faces in Hyacinth's embrace.
Several elves covered their ears.
The spirits gathered around the sacred tree and trembled.
Luiana watched them.
The defense was successful. The monsters could not reach the village.
Yet the village was not at peace.
The thunderous roars slicing through the air had frozen everything in the village.
Tending the herb fields, heading out to gather timber, checking the waterways—everything stopped.
Every time the cannon fire rang out, the children's shoulders shook.
Surviving and living were different things.
Luiana felt that difference for the first time, deep in her bones.
***
After deploying the defense system, Luiana headed straight for the tower.
The reason was simple.
A tower could only be destroyed by finishing it from the inside.
It had been the same in her previous life.
No matter how many hundreds of monsters one slaughtered in front of a gate, if the tower remained, the next wave would crawl out.
So there was only one answer.
Go inside and end it.
Seris tried to follow, but Luiana stopped her with a gesture.
"Wait."
"But..."
"I'll go look first."
Luiana walked toward the tower.
The connection with the sacred tree grew taut.
The distance was already nearing its limit.
Even so, she did not stop.
The roots and mana lines beneath her feet tried to hold her back, but Luiana gritted her teeth and pressed forward.
The black tower's entrance came into view.
It was the door deeper inside than the gate—the entrance that accepted climbers.
That door stood quietly open within the darkness.
Luiana did not hesitate.
One step.
The moment she crossed the threshold, her vision flipped.
In the next instant, Luiana was standing beside the sacred tree.
Exactly where she had been moments ago.
Hyacinth stared at her with a shocked face.
Alex blinked.
The tip of Seris's sword trembled.
"...Again."
Luiana immediately turned around.
She headed for the tower once more.
She crossed the threshold again.
And once again returned to the sacred tree.
The third time was the same.
The fourth time was the same.
The tower was not rejecting her.
It was not the resistance felt by one without entry qualifications.
Before that, the tether connected to the sacred tree was pulling her back to the origin point.
Luiana could not enter the tower.
Her grip tightened around the sword hilt.
The scabbard creaked between her clenched fingers.
"Lady Luiana."
Alex approached cautiously.
His face was pale.
"At this rate, defense is possible. At least for now. But if we leave the tower alone, the number of gates will increase. And eventually a break will..."
"I know."
Luiana cut him off.
Alex closed his mouth.
There was no way she wouldn't know.
The Luiana of her previous life had reached the top of a tower.
She had also seen the land after a break.
Rivers turned black, air that scraped the throat with every breath, forests rotting from the veins of their leaves.
There were survivors, but none who called that place a place to live.
She might be able to protect the village.
But if this forest changed like that, even the word "protect" would become meaningless.
Luiana turned to look at the sacred tree.
The massive tree stood within the darkness.
Her partner tree, the root of her being.
And now, it was a shackle holding her in place.
The moment that thought rose, Luiana's eyes grew cold.
She glared at the sacred tree.
Why did it have to be a tree?
Why did it have to be a Dryad?
She had a sword, enemies to cut down, and a tower to climb.
So why must she be bound to this spot?
Rage surged within her.
If it had been according to her previous life's ways, it would have been simple.
Cut down anything in the way and move forward.
The life known as the Sword Demon had been lived that way.
If necessary, she would even discard her own body as if cutting it away and throw herself into battle.
So it was only natural that her gaze toward the sacred tree grew sharp.
It was then.
Thump.
A very small ripple rose from somewhere.
It was not a sound.
It was not a fluctuation of mana.
It was emotion.
Luiana frowned.
The emotion that had just surfaced was not hers.
It was not rage, nor irritation, nor the sharp urge that rose when she gripped a sword.
It was far softer, and far deeper.
It was so unfamiliar that she felt instinctive rejection for a moment.
Thump.
The wave rang out again.
This time it was clearer.
I don't want the children to be in danger.
Thump.
I hope the children don't cry.
I hope the elves don't tremble in fear.
Even if branches break or roots tear, I want to embrace them.
And.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry I can't move.
I'm sorry I don't want to hold you but have no choice but to do so.
Luiana stopped breathing.
That emotion was not hers.
At least, it was not an emotion that could have come from the Luiana of her previous life.
The soul that had lived only with a single sword as its companion, drenched in blood and battle, did not know how to embrace the world in such a way.
But it was clearly connected to Luiana.
Deep within the sacred tree.
In a place untouched by the previous life's memories or the Sword Demon's madness.
Something that had been submerged there for a very long time was lifting its head.
A soul forged from the elves' prayers and the mana of nature. A gentle and benevolent soul that would originally have been called a Dryad.
There were no words.
It was still too faint to call a self.
Even so, it knew of the crisis.
It felt the children's fear.
It felt the elves' stubborn hearts that refused to leave it behind.
And all those emotions flowed into Luiana as if resonating.
Luiana gazed at the sacred tree.
Just moments ago it had looked like a shackle.
But now it looked different.
It was not merely a tree that held her in place.
It was another version of herself, worrying for the same children in a different way.
The rage had not completely vanished.
The tower was still there.
The cannon fire was still tearing through the night.
The village was trapped, and the time of the break was drawing near.
So the rage could not disappear.
Unlike the hand gripping the sword, the hand she stretched toward the sacred tree trembled faintly.
Luiana slowly placed her palm against the trunk.
She felt the enormous flow of mana beneath the rough bark.
Deep within that flow, there was a small heartbeat-like tremor.
"I can't just stay still like this."
Luiana said.
Her voice was low, but this time it did not contain only anger.
There was something closer to a plea mixed within.
It was neither a command nor a reproach.
It was the first time she spoke such words.
"You feel the same, don't you?"
For a moment, nothing happened.
The cannon fire roared once more in the distance.
One child sobbed quietly, and Hyacinth held the child in her arms.
Seris held her breath and stared at Luiana's back.
Alex and the Magic Tower personnel also fell silent.
Then, soft green mana trembled from the sacred tree.
At first, it was only a single leaf glowing.
But soon the circuits inside the trunk began to pulse quietly.
Along with the spreading waves, light spread through the branches and roots.
Beneath Luiana's palm, that small heartbeat-like tremor rang out once more.
It felt like an answer.
The ancient soul within the partner tree has awakened.
It shares the same wish.
— To protect the children —