Chapter 81: The Tin Knight and The Land of Deep Green (11)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 81: The Tin Knight and The Land of Deep Green (11)
Clank. The Tin Knight leaped down from the tree, landing near the party.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ declares the hunt over!]
“…Yeah. It certainly looks like it's over.”
Dorothea stared at the tree.
The sundered tree still radiated immense mana, but she couldn't sense any will or intellect to wield it.
Adel, her body stained with the blood of magic beasts, spoke in a puzzled voice.
“Um, what was that all about? I don't understand why it attacked us, or what this tree even was.”
Sophia replied, “Well, now that we've defeated it, there's no way to find out— Hmm?”
Sophia trailed off.
She narrowed her pink eyes, then corrected herself.
“No, it seems something is still left.”
Led by Sophia, the party moved forward.
The tree was split in half.
Seeing what lay between the roots buried in the earth and the trunk that stretched toward the sky, Adel blinked in surprise.
“…A house?”
It was. A house.
Though time had worn it down to a mere fraction of what it once was, a clearly man-made structure stood there.
Broken walls. A collapsed roof.
And at its center, two bodies lay slumped over each other.
No one living was there. The monster that had threatened them was nowhere to be found. This was the home of those who were already gone, already dead.
As everyone stood speechless at the unexpected sight, Sophia took their hands.
Transferring her wine-colored mana to the party, she spoke.
“—Let’s find out. Let’s see what happened here. What was done to a father and daughter who had only just reached a paradise of their own.”
One, two, three.
Red mana flared in the party’s eyes.
They reached out toward the fissure of the past that had appeared above the two corpses.
*
Once upon a time. A long, long time ago.
In a deep forest untouched by human feet, there lived a kind father and his sweet daughter.
The two had lost much before arriving here, but now, they were safe.
Here, there was no one to curse them. Here, there was no one to glare at them.
The small, cozy cabin was a peaceful paradise the two had finally managed to obtain.
Feeling the warmth she had found, the daughter was happy.
And just as happy as she was, she was also heartbroken.
The daughter knew she was a monster.
Her father had told her time and again that she was just different from others, a normal person, but everyone else called her a monster.
To protect her, her father had been forced to give up everything.
Feeling so sorry for this, the daughter wept silently.
She was still too weak and lacking to repay him now, but she vowed that when she grew up, she would make her father happy.
To this daughter, the trees of the forest spoke.
-Child, child. Child born of the shade.
-Dryad, born of a tree, who lives with the forest.
-Unlike your kin, who were stained by evil, your heart holds no wickedness.
-Unlike them, who were driven from this place long ago, your heart is full of kindness.
-We wish for more children like you. We wish for more children like you to be with us.
-Please, accept our gift.
Around the cabin where the father and daughter lived, luscious fruits were always plentiful, and no creature of the forest tried to harm them.
It was a truly strange phenomenon, but the father simply thought the tool he'd received from the witches was more effective than expected; he never imagined it was the result of the forest showing favor to his daughter.
For a good long while, their happy days flowed by.
Then, as if to say such happiness was too much for them, misfortune arrived.
The father had fallen ill.
The daughter nursed him diligently, but his condition did not improve.
The daughter, not being human, grew healthy just by being in the forest, but her human father had no such ability.
To save her father, she needed human skills.
With firm resolve, the daughter left the forest.
The trees warned her it was dangerous, but to save her father, she had no choice.
Hiding her green skin tightly under cloth, the daughter slipped into a human town.
In exchange for rare herbs and fruits gathered from the forest, the daughter was able to get medicine for her father.
Some were suspicious of her, but once they caught the sweet scent wafting from her body, their eyes would glaze over, and they would treat her with kindness.
Having successfully acquired the medicine, the daughter left the town and headed for the forest.
Thinking that this would save her father, the daughter's pace quickened.
Unaware that someone was following her.
When the daughter arrived at the cabin, the first thing she saw was her father, his body trembling as he prepared to go outside.
Knowing his daughter had gone outside the forest, he had tried to move, forcing his sick body to obey.
Seeing his daughter return home, the father was overcome with emotion and embraced her.
The daughter, though troubled by her father’s recklessness, felt a surge of emotion at his love for her.
The two held each other and wept silently.
It was then that the trees of the forest screamed.
Flee, quickly! they warned the daughter.
Only then did the daughter realize something was wrong, but it was too late.
Phwook.
A sharp sword pierced through the chests of the father and daughter.
Red blood and green blood flowed together.
The father’s eyes widened in shock.
Until his last moment, he tried to say something to his daughter, but the blood that gushed forth choked his final words.
Clutching her father's slowly cooling body, the daughter collapsed to her knees.
Without a single word, the sudden intruder cut off the daughter's head.
The daughter's head, flying through the air, her wide-open eyes, saw the intruder.
The intruder was clad in clean, priestly robes, their body wreathed in a white light.
The beautiful emerald sword was stained with the blood of the father and daughter.
As if disgusted by it, the priest wore a look of displeasure.
That fact stained the daughter's heart black.
The intruder approached the daughter, who was now only a head, unable to even die, weeping tears of blood.
He raised the emerald sword and brought it down on the daughter's head.
Again and again. Thoroughly, as if to erase even the slightest possibility of survival.
Only after the daughter's head was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp did the robed intruder sheathe his sword.
Once the intruder left, only the bodies of the father and daughter remained in the cabin.
Lamenting the sight, the forest howled.
The daughter, having lost her head, no longer had the intellect to issue rational commands.
The spirit of the tree, robbed of her father and brutally murdered, no longer possessed her former purity and kindness.
Grudge, resentment, malice.
Rage, revenge, lament.
All those emotions, all that despair, seeped from the blood and brains into the earth.
So that no one could approach. So that no one could harm them.
To the emerald sky, to the humans who stole her father, she vowed brutal revenge.
The plants accepted the will left in her blood.
They intertwined, embracing the cabin where the father and daughter slept within their bodies.
Before long, they transformed into a single, giant tree.
The king that ruled the forest was born.
*
“…That's horrible.”
Adel whispered, covering her mouth.
Dorothea looked displeased, and Sophia closed her eyes, offering a silent prayer.
Even the Tin Knight, finding it hard to act his usual self in this situation, scratched the back of his head with a squeak.
After a short sigh, Dorothea spoke.
“So, the 'Ruler of the Garden.' The enemy we just fought and defeated wasn't the father who built this house, nor the daughter who was called a monster, but the plants that absorbed their residual thoughts and went berserk. Is that it?”
Sophia nodded.
“It would seem so. That would also explain why the animals influenced by the forest moved without a clear command structure, following the extremely simple order to 'just repel outsiders.' The so-called king wasn't in a state capable of complex thought to begin with.”
Adel asked cautiously, “Th-then, we didn't disturb their rest, or anything like that, did we?”
“No, we didn't. For now.”
“Huh?”
Adel couldn't help but question the implication in Dorothea's tone.
Dorothea shrugged.
“It's just a case of 'we hit it first and found out later.' It was entirely possible that thing really was the final form of the father or the daughter.”
“Ah, ahh.”
Adel's face turned pale.
For someone as sensitive as her, the realization that she had nearly become an accomplice to the very crime she had just witnessed was a tremendous shock.
Dorothea scoffed at her.
“Have you finally realized you're not traveling with some party of righteous heroes, but with a witch and her cronies?”
“U-Ugh.”
Watching Dorothea and Adel, the Tin Knight discreetly turned his head and asked Sophia.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if that was her attempt at comforting someone!]
“Hmm, I suppose so. If I had to interpret it, it would be something like, 'I'm the one in charge, so you don't need to worry about it.' How cute.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ expresses admiration, noting that it’s not just her fashion sense that’s old-fashioned, but her personality is just as archaic!]
“Hey, you two in the peanut gallery! Shut up before I bury you both! And stop with your ridiculous interpretations!”
Dorothea snapped in irritation.
Her face didn't turn overtly red, but her hands were trembling slightly.
Even Adel looked up at Dorothea with a strangely moved expression, thinking, 'So that's what she meant...!' but when Dorothea's face darkened and she glared at her with terrifying eyes, Adel let out a yelp and backed away.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks who the culprit from the vision was!]
“W-Well? Do you two know?”
As if to dodge Dorothea’s glare, Adel quickly responded to the Tin Knight’s question.
Dorothea and Sophia glanced at each other before answering.
“He used holy magic, so wasn't he one of those Kingdom of Heaven guys? Probably. Though I can't be certain, since there are oddballs like Sophia around.”
“I suspect he was either on a mission from the heavens, or he was diligently racking up achievements to ask to be sent to the heavens. It's likely one of the two.”
A question mark appeared over Adel’s head.
The Tin Knight spoke.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ requests a simple and clear three-line summary!]
“Even if you ask, I don't know much myself. At best, I know they're connected to the higher-ups in various countries, that they live in a nation above the sky, and that they sometimes find exceptional users of holy magic on the surface and take them to the heavens. That's about all I know.”
“Other than that... they possess incredible power and authority. They're difficult people who enforce various rules they call 'laws' and punish those who don't obey. Trying to learn the details about 'the heavens' is a taboo in itself, so there's very little information available.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ replies that if they aren't just pretending not to know, then that's enough!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ offers a clear solution: they seem like the masterminds, so can't we just fight them later?]
“No, I have no particular desire to fight monsters like that.”
Though Dorothea coldly shot down the Tin Knight’s words, her tone was strangely flat.
She swung her left wrist counter-clockwise twice, summoning her birdcage.
Thrum, thrum. As the waves emanating from the cage spread out, several spirits floated into view.
Instead of offering them a contract as she usually did, Dorothea swung her wrist clockwise twice, returning the cage to its ring form.
The spirits lingered around Dorothea for a moment as if puzzled, but soon vanished in a haze of white light.
Among them was a green spirit, a slightly different color from the others. And clinging tightly to it was another soul.
As the spirits became light and passed on, Dorothea murmured softly.
“—Well, if it comes down to it, I suppose I'll have no choice but to fight.”