Chapter 364: The Giant Golden Tree, and the Black Panther.
Chapter 364: The Giant Golden Tree, and the Black Panther.
The Reverse World, Magicraft Kingdom Eisengard. The country once ruled by the Magicraft King, Gibram Zain Eisengard.
He was a crazy cyborg old man, who revived a final weapon of the ancient civilization, Hekatonkheire, and even tried to destroyed his own country; although, I defeated him in the end.
I had no further interests towards Eisengard after that, and so, I had no idea what happened to that country after the Magicraft King had died.
And right now, it seems that Eisengard is on the brink of collapse. What happened?
The first signs of the abnormality occurred two weeks ago. Here and there in Eisengard, golden snow began falling.
The strange snow had stopped immediately, but a few days after that, cases of people falling sick suddenly appeared all over the country. They suffered from a high fever as well as internal pain, and within a short period, their bodies would wither, and they would die. The populace was gripped with fear at the onset of this mysterious disease; meanwhile, patients were appearing in various towns and cities.
And yet, the tragedy that would befall Eisengard had only just started.
When people were trying to bury the ones who had died to this strange disease, it was said that golden flowers suddenly burst out of the corpse’s forehead and bloomed.
And those same corpses, with the golden flowers atop their heads, rose up and attacked the people.
The same thing repeated itself in towns and cities alike. Now, those zombies with golden flowers on their heads were apparently walking about openly in the streets.
This incident did not spread across the entirety of Eisengard, but was mainly centered around its northern region.
When I heard the name of the town—Zine—where these phenomena first showed up from Silhouette-san, I finally managed to remember what happened back then.
Several months ago, a group of variants had appeared near that town; and one of them, an ostrich-type variant, had pecked at the ground several times right before it died.
Could that strange behaviour be the cause for this incident?
Having thought that, I brought along the currently free members, Yumina, Sakura, as well as Suu, and used [Dimensional Transfer] to move to the place where that happened.
“What the hell is this…!”
What appeared before us when we finished the transfer was a giant golden tree.
The tree, which definitely goes over 100 meters in height, has a distinct metallic shine to it, and doesn’t look like a plant at all. Even its leaves look like thin metallic sheets.
Huge. While there were several trees back on Earth that had also broken 100 meters in height, it’s my first time seeing something like this.
As it’s gold in color, light is reflecting off it in various angles, and it’s blinding to look at. It’s not a simple tree; there are parts that resemble a cypress, parts that resemble a pine tree, and even parts that resemble a rose and parts that resemble broad-leaf bamboos. It’s a giant tree that was created from a mix between metallic parts which mimicked a variety of different plants.
“Touya-san, this is…!”
“Aah, probably the same thing as the variants.”
As I answered Yumina, I was convinced; the ostrich-type variant last time must have planted some kind of seed into the ground back then.
“So you mean that tree itself is a variant-no?”
Suu asked a question. At least, I’ve never seen a plant-type Phrase before. Variants are things born when Phrases are embued with the evil god’s element. If there are plant-type Phrases out there, then it wouldn’t be weird for there to be a plant-type variant too.
“The golden snow… That’s probably not snow, but spore-like things this tree released to spread throughout Eisengard.”
“… Mushroom?”
Sakura tilted her head and scowled. Right, Sakura doesn’t like mushrooms. You won’t grow big like that, you know. Like a certain plumber with a moustache somewhere.
“Something like that. And the people who came into contact with those variant spores were afflicted and became zombies…”
Instead of becoming zombies, I guess it’s close to say they’re becoming variants. Just like how the Phrase also turned into variants.
“The variants are doing something called ‘soul eating’. The reason why not everyone was affected was probably because those who were had stronger negative emotions, and were thus more compatible with the variants.”
I actually heard from Silhouette-san already; most of the people who became afflicted were adults. As expected, older people tend to hold more negative emotions like stress, anger or even hatred.
However, it’s not like there are no affected children at all. Child zombies reportedly appeared in the slum districts of larger cities. This kind of thing differs according to the environment, after all.
The town of Zine close by is in a state of total collapse: one-third of the population had been turned into zombies, one-third had been killed by them, and the last one-third had run away from the town.
The people who were afflicted don’t have much fighting strength. If combat-type golems are available, then defeating them isn’t something difficult. However, if the difference in number is too large, that would change.
The variant-afflicted people who destroyed the town of Zine had apparently moved to attack other towns. It’s a scenario commonly seen in B-rate zombie flicks; however, for those who were being attacked, it’s nothing they can joke about.
“There’s no way we can leave something like this alone, eh. Touya! Let’s get rid of this stupid tree already!”
Just as Suu said, we need to get rid of this thing as soon as possible to prevent any further damage. However, when it’s this big, I have no idea where I should even begin to look for its core…
“In the worst case, it might even be underground… Nn?”
There’s something near the top of the giant tree. It’s hard to tell because of all the gold- colored leaves, but I’m sure I saw a blood-red “something” up there for a second…
“[Long Sense].”
I extended my senses, and caught it in my eyes. Around 80 meters up the tree, within the tree trunk, there’s a red core surrounded by golden thorns.
So this tree is a type of variant as well, huh.
While I’m thankful for the fact that I can see its core unlike other variants, that core is stupidly large too. The diameter is around 4 meters, I think?
If this giant tree really is a variant, then it could be an advanced-class.
Sakura and Suu seem to have found the core as well. Although it is pretty hard to see, the color contrast is there so it’s not hard to confirm where it is at least.
“Destroy that core?”
“It looks surprisingly simple-ja no.”
As if reacting to Suu’s words, suddenly, numerous golden thorns shot out of the ground under our feet and assaulted us.
The spiked thorns attacked from all directions with whip-like motions.
“[Teleport]!”
I took the three girls and escaped with instant movement.
Immediately, we moved to a location several hundred meters away from the giant golden tree.
In the distance, from the base of the giant tree, we can see innumerable tentacle-like golden thorns extending outwards. That was dangerous.
I did think that it should have some kind of defense mechanism if it’s incapable of moving itself. Still, I didn’t expect them to attack from underground as well. I was thinking something along the lines of the leaves turning razor-sharp and falling down on us. Or something like chestnut-like fruits with spikes all over them dropping down.
Still, that’s quite the thick wall… With that, even if we’re in Frame Gears, there’s a high chance we’ll get entangled in them if we approach. If that’s the case…
“Yumina, can I leave this to you?”
“Yes, of course. That much is nothing for me.”
Yumina took out her smartphone, and pressed on a certain app on its home screen. The name of the app is “Storage”. As its name suggests, it’s a function I enchanted onto the smartphone.
Yumina then called out a certain thing stored within that “Storage” app.
A silver Frame Gear appeared before us. Yumina’s personal frame, the long-range sniping- specialized Brunnhilde.
Yumina got into Brunnhilde, and took up a stance with the long-range rifle that was equipped on her back; her aim was, of course, the giant tree variant in front of us.
“One shot, one kill.”
Brunnhilde’s finger pulled the trigger. The crystal bullet loaded in the rifle flew out of the barrel, and headed towards the golden tree in a beautifully straight line.
The silver meteor-like shot did not stray from its course, and perfectly impacted the red core of the giant golden tree. As a bonus, the [Explosion] enchanted onto the bullet activated, and the core was blown to smithereens.
The giant tree, with its core blown up, crumbled like an explosion-demolished building, and disappeared from view while raising a large amount of dirt cloud.
The gold-colored wreckage of the tree eventually started to release black smoke and dissolved into a sticky liquid-like state before disappearing. No matter how many times I see it, it’s still an unsettling sight.
“It’s safe with this?”
“For now, I guess.”
I answered Sakura.
With this, there shouldn’t be anymore variant-afflicted people showing up. Now I just need to do something about the currently active ones in Eisengard…
When I searched using the map, as expected, the afflicted people have already spread out all over the place in the northern regions.
How should I deal with this… The area is too big for me to cover with area magic; and in the first place, variants have the same special characteristic of magic-absorption just like regular Phrases, so magic wouldn’t work.
[Meteor Zapper] should work since it’s a physical attack, but that one is indiscriminate, so… If I blow away the entire town in the process, there’s no point.
“Are?”
As I was pondering the problem while looking at the map, the pins indicating variant-afflicted people suddenly began to disappear. Ehhh?
The variant-afflicted people are disappearing?
“What does this mean-ja?”
“Since we defeated the giant tree variant, the rest disappeared with it, or something?”
Suu and Sakura looked at each other. Well, that’s the most logical conclusion, I suppose…
Yumina, who had descended from Brunnhilde, looked at the map, which was still showing the continuously disappearing pins, and fell into thought.
“The variant-afflicted people in the town was being controlled by that giant tree… Could that have been the case, perhaps?”
I see. That’s one way to look at it. It’s like the Soldat golems; the giant tree is the command tower, while the people who were afflicted become subservient to it, huh.
If we assume the golden flowers on top of their heads act as some kind of receiver, then the story would match up. Since [Search] doesn’t recognize them as variants anymore, I guess they’re dissolving like the giant tree right about now.
“For now, let’s head towards Silhouette-san’s place. She might have more information about the situation.”
When I said that, Yumina grimaced a bit. What?
“Going to that place is a bit… We have Suu with us as well; wouldn’t it be bad in various ways…?”
Ah…
Right, bringing a 12-year-old girl to a brothel is a pretty questionable act… Eh, the last time with Yumina and Luu were completely out as well though!
“Why is it that I can’t be there?”
Suu came forward with her question. Please spare me. There’s no way I’m gonna explain what a brothel is to you. Having said that, if I just give a vague explanation, Suu will only become more confused, too.
Even if she’s my fiancée, I’m definitely not going to say something like “It’s a place where men pay women to do erotic things with them!” to a girl younger than me. Although, I think she should have some degree of knowledge thanks to the sex ed our ero maid and ero professor put them through last time.
“For, for the moment, I’m going to go contact Silhouette-san. Yumina, Sakura, I leave the explanation to you!”
“Eh!?”
“King-sama, not fair.”
While feeling the criticizing gazes of the two on my back, I took out my smartphone and moved away from the group.
The commercial city located in the north of Strain Kingdom, Cantarre. It’s the city that is home to the brothel “Moonlight Parlor”, as well as the stronghold of the intelligence organization [Black Cats].
We are waiting for someone while sitting at the open terrace of a café in a corner of the city. The person we’re waiting for arrived before the tea we ordered did.
“Sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“It’s ok; we’re troubling you to come here as well.”
The beauty, which would capture any man, and the bewitching smile. She is none other than the boss of the [Black Cats], the “Shadow Lily”, Silhouette Lily. She’s one of the people cooperating with us in the Reverse World.
Silhouette-san sat down at our table before ordering some drinks from a waiter. The black- clothed men around her, who are exerting an intimidating aura all around as they stood guard, are scary as hell though!
“First, a thank you is in order, I suppose. The incidents that occurred in Eisengard are dying down one after another. It was you guys, wasn’t it?”
“So the afflicted people really did disappear?”
“Afflicted? Ah, you mean those corpses that came back to life with those demonic flowers on their heads. Yes. Around an hour ago, all the walking corpses apparently melted down and disappeared.”
So the variant-afflicted people are all gone. We shared the information regarding the giant golden tree with Silhouette-san. For now, everything is settled…
“I feel some sense of guilt, really. If we had noticed that variant sooner…”
“The tablet didn’t react at all?”
“Apparently not. I wonder why?”
The sensing board is a magic tool that detects the sounds Phrases or variants make as they appear from another dimension, and uses that to calculate their numbers as well as the time and location of their eventual appearance, before showing that information on its screen.
It’s just a guess, but… It’s probably unable to detect the seed of that tree variant, which was planted directly in this world.
Silhouette-san nodded and accepted that explanation. Since it didn’t pass through dimensions and was here from the start, there’s obviously no way the sensing board can detect it.
After that, I introduced Sakura and Suu to Silhouette-san, but when she learnt the two of them are my fiancées as well, Silhouette-san started teasing them just like the other day. However, the only ones who were flustered were me and Yumina; Sakura and Suu, whose knowledge regarding that area was relatively light, didn’t understand most of her jokes.
After teasing us for a while, Silhouette-san suddenly brought up another topic.
“Oh right, I heard from Est from the [Red Cats]. Is it true you taught them magic?”
“Magic? Well, it’s true I did that…”
I swallowed the rest of my sentence when I saw the way Silhouette-san’s eyes sparkled. Ah, this is going to turn out like that, isn’t it?
“Ah, well, magic is something that can only be used by people with the aptitudes, so—”
“You can check that, right?”
“Yes…”
I could only answer in the affirmative when faced with the power of Silhouette-san’s smile.
While being stared at by the girls who are sitting at the same table, I took out magic stone fragments and placed them on the table. I mean, it can’t be helped, can it? She’s helped us out quite a bit up until now, and we’ll continue to rely on her for various things in the future too.
I was thinking, please have no aptitudes so I can be spared anything troublesome, in my heart, but alas, a man can never get what he wants. Silhouette-san had the aptitude for darkness magic.
Well, it’s easier to teach magic of the darkness attribute compared to the other elements. Of course, there’s no way I’ll teach her ancient magics, so it’s just summoning magic for now.
“Summoning magic? Something like a familiar?”
“Something like that. Normally, the summoning result is random… You leave it up to fate, basically. However, if I help, I can narrow down the result range to a degree. Do you have anything you’d want from your summoned beast?”
“Let’s see… I think something cat-related would be good. If it’s strong enough to be able to guard me, that would be even better; is that possible?”
Nn… Well, it is possible. However, with Silhouette-san’s magic capacity, even if she manages a contract with a summoned beast, she would probably be able to call it out for only a few minutes at best; as such, I don’t think it would serve the role of being her bodyguard well.
Well, it’s not like I can’t do anything about that, though.
In any case, since there’s no way I can do the summoning here, I transferred the group to a place without people some distance from the city.
I called Kohaku over from the Surface World, and began drawing the magic circle on the ground. After that, I asked Silhouette-san to focus her magic power, and mixed that with Kohaku’s spiritual energy. This should work.
The black mist that appeared within the magic circle expanded outwards explosively after some time, and disappeared. A panther with dark fur, that almost makes people wonder if it’s formed from condensing the black mist earlier, appeared at the center of the magic circle.
“… So it is indeed the White Emperor-sama. It’s been a long time.”
“It is. You seem well.”
The black panther conversed with Kohaku harmoniously. So it’s the type that can communicate, huh. According to Kohaku, this panther in front of me is of a species called “Lightning Panther”, and as its name indicates, it can control lightning.
When Kohaku explained the circumstances, it readily agreed to undertake the contract, so I took out a collar with a silver medallion attached to it from [Storage].
“That is?”
“Just a normal collar. Not the medallion, though; I have poured magic power into it beforehand, so using that, the summoned beast can move about in this world continuously. With this, it should perform the job of being Silhouette-san’s bodyguard perfectly.”
I moved towards the black panther to put the collar on, but was blocked by a barrier around the magic circle. Ah, right. It can’t come out until Silhouette-san finalizes the contract.
Once Silhouette-san gave it the name of “Shade”, it got out of the magic circle calmly. I then put the collar on its neck. That should be everything.
“… Amazing. I can converse with this child within my heart.”
“That would be telepathy. It should remain active even if you’re separated up to a point.”
Well, if they’re separated that would mean it fails as a bodyguard.
Unlike Kohaku, Shade apparently can’t transform itself into a miniature form. That means Silhouette-san would be bringing along a huge black panther as she moves about. That’s gonna stand out, no doubt…
“I’ve stood out plenty up until now, so this much is nothing. On the contrary, I’m thankful for the fact that this child would be able to scare away more of those unsavory people, really.”
Silhouette-san was pretty calm about it as she stroked Shade’s head. I see.
After that, Silhouette-san kept stroking Shade together with Suu and Sakura for a while, but then she turned towards me and hit her hands together once.
“Right right. There’s someone I want you to meet, actually; could you spare the time? He’s in this city right now, coincidentally.”
“Someone you want us to meet? Who is that?”
“The most important person of this country.”
Towards Silhouette-san’s mischievous smile, we could only return blank stares.
-Pixel