Continuing south, we were able to reach the place Hanna had pointed out the next day.
All of the team members were energy users, so we covered a considerable distance in a single day, but only the mountain range had grown farther away. The land itself had not changed.
A desolate land where neither trees nor grass could be seen.
But here, there were many things moving.
“I understand why it looked black. With control objects and monsters swarming all over the place, of course it would look black.”
Sergeant Woo, who had been examining the front, lowered the binoculars he had brought from Earth and clicked his tongue.
We were lying flat behind a low hill several kilometers away from our destination.
There was still some distance to the destination, but everything ahead was flatland.
We couldn’t get any closer without being discovered.
Looking at the monsters through the binoculars Sergeant Woo had handed him, Tom said,
“There aren’t as many as there were in the city.”
He was right.
The city had been packed with monsters created by the control object.
We had hunted them continuously, but more than half were still left even now.
The monsters gathered up ahead were not that numerous.
Like the monsters in the ruins of the “First Emperor’s Memorial Hall,” only a small number of monsters could be seen beside the control object.
Three defense-type monsters, ten scout monsters. On top of that, dozens of humanoid monsters serving it.
It was far fewer than in the city, but that didn’t mean they were numbers we could fight.
“They’re not the monsters you met west of the mountain range, are they?”
At Margreta’s question, I shook my head.
“No. They’re different ones.”
The control object looked different, and the number of its subordinates was different as well.
Even when I checked with my senses, it was the same.
The ones over there were different monsters.
“We got out of the frying pan, only to end up back in the fire. We barely managed to force down one of them… So there really wasn’t just one or two control objects.”
She meant “one mountain after another,” didn’t she?
The translation was a little strange, but it was easy enough to understand what Margreta meant.
Sergeant Woo asked me,
“What do we do now? I don’t think we’ll be able to use the terrain here…”
As he said, the place where the monsters were gathered was a flat stretch of land with nothing on it.
We couldn’t fight here the way we had in the city.
But we couldn’t just sit here and watch, either.
It wasn’t only that we couldn’t afford to waste time. There was an even more important problem.
We had a time limit.
“Why did it have to come this way…?”
The monsters were slowly approaching us.
They weren’t coming because they knew we were here.
The monsters were moving in pursuit of something else.
Something I still couldn’t believe even as I looked at it.
It was a building floating in the sky—an ancient ruin.
What was even more absurd was that a gigantic tree rose abruptly from the top of the ruin.
It looked as if that ruin had been built around the tree and floated into the sky.
It was a scene like something I had seen in an old animation.
While everyone was staring at the ruin floating in the sky, Soph spoke.
[A Star Tree.]
[Do you know that ruin?]
[Not the ruin. I know the tree. Hanna’s bow was made from a branch of that tree.]
At Soph’s words, I remembered as well.
Hanna’s bow had been made from a tree branch left behind in the terraforming ruin.
A branch that had absorbed dark energy over countless years and gained magic.
Back then, Soph had looked at the branch and said it was from a Star Tree.
It should have been a tree from more than ten thousand years ago, yet that tree was before my eyes.
On top of that, the tree was now flying through the sky.
[Don’t tell me a Star Tree is a tree that flies through the sky?]
[Of course not. It’s being kept afloat by magic. The reason for that is… Hmph, I’ve forgotten this as well.]
Soph clicked his tongue mid-sentence.
It seemed he couldn’t remember this time, either.
[When there’s something I can’t remember, it feels even more frustrating than before. Why on earth is this happening… Is it because so much of my memory has returned?]
As if he was truly frustrated, Soph muttered to himself.
Naturally, I could hear every word.
Soph might not know it, but watching from beside him, I felt like I understood.
As his memories returned, Soph was becoming more and more emotional.
And as his emotions grew richer, it was only natural that he would feel frustrated.
He had been a magical ego with a copied personality, but as he regained the memories from when he had been alive, he was gradually becoming the human Soph.
The control object and the other monsters were not simply following the flying tree ruin.
The monsters were attacking the ruin.
Of course, from the ground, their attacks could not reach the flying ruin.
Neither the monsters’ tentacles nor the stones they hurled could damage the ruin.
But among the monsters, there were some that could attack the flying ruin.
The magic monsters.
Even now, those monsters were flying up into the sky, circling around the ruin.
Boom! Boom! Kwaaang!
The monsters flew about, attacking the ruin.
Flames and ice, light and even poison—all kinds of magic flew toward the ruin.
Fortunately, the magic the monsters unleashed did not reach the ruin.
All of it was blocked by the barrier surrounding the ruin.
It was a barrier created by the flying ruin.
It had protected the ruin for a very long time, but now that barrier was shaking violently, as if it would break at any moment.
Grrrrrk.
[It won’t last long. The barrier will break soon.]
Soph reached that conclusion outright.
It was the word of an archmage. There was no way he was wrong.
I looked at Hanna.
She was lying on her stomach, staring at the ruin.
With one hand tightly gripping her bow, Hanna gazed fixedly at the ruin.
What she had said yesterday while pointing here was, “A single streak of white light within black light.”
Now that I was seeing it for myself, I felt I understood why Hanna had said that.
The black light was those monsters, and the white light was undoubtedly the flying ruin and the tree.
[So this is why Hanna insisted on coming.]
I thought the same as Soph.
At the time, she had said that her coming with us would be helpful to me.
If so, that meant there was something in that ruin meant for me.
[But if the ruin breaks before that, the road ahead of you will turn pitch-black.]
If the barrier shattered, the ruin would crash to the ground, and the monsters waiting below would surely smash it to pieces.
Or else they would take whatever was inside the ruin.
Either way, we had to stop it.
“If I were alone, I think I could get as far as the front…”
I couldn’t fly freely through the sky like those monsters, but with air explosions, I could rocket myself up to the ruin.
The problem was that barrier.
[Can’t you open that barrier, Soph?]
[It’s a method I don’t know. No, perhaps I know it, but it isn’t in my memory. In any case, there’s nothing I can do from the outside.]
Then there was no way.
Putting aside whether it was even possible to break it, we couldn’t forcibly destroy the barrier when the monsters were watching for their chance.
As I was agonizing over our lack of options, Sergeant Woo’s voice reached me.
“They’re almost here. Should we fall back?”
Before I knew it, the monsters had drawn close.
At his words, I looked around.
Other than this hill, everything was flatland.
Retreating didn’t look easy, either.
If I were alone, I thought I could escape, but I didn’t even consider it.
“We have no choice right now. Let’s fall back. I’ll cover the rear.”
I would be in danger, but I should be able to buy enough time for the team to get away.
At my words, the others began to retreat, but Hanna did not move from the spot.
She was still holding her bow and looking at the ruin.
“Hanna?”
Margreta shook her, but Hanna only stared blankly at the ruin as if her soul had left her body.
Just as Margreta was about to shake her again, Hanna opened her mouth.
“The tree is calling.”
It was truly an absurd thing to say.
“What?”
Everyone looked at her with bewildered expressions.
Hanna turned her head, looked at her startled companions, and smiled brightly.
“The tree only called me, but I told it everyone had to come with me. Let’s all go together.”
Fwoosh!
The moment she finished speaking, her bow shone brightly.
At the same time, a translucent membrane formed around us.
People’s bodies began to float.
“Aaagh, what is this? I can’t get out!”
A startled Tom flailed his body, and the other team members, too, tightened their grips on their weapons with shocked faces.
Unlike my companions, I entrusted my body to the external force.
Considering Hanna’s words and everything that had happened so far, this had to be something trying to help us.
[It’s unrefined magic, similar to the abilities you use. A barrier of the same kind as the one around the ruin, and towing magic. I don’t think there’s any need to block this.]
On top of that, I had the archmage’s confirmation.
Because of the mage’s cutting way of speaking, the sense of mystery disappeared, but I could entrust myself to the magic without worry.
Wooooong!
Enclosed in the barrier, we rose into the sky.
The startled monsters rushed toward us, but before they arrived, we had already reached a height their tentacles could not reach.
We continued flying toward the ruin.
The magic monsters attacking the ruin fired magic at us, but only a few spells flew properly in our direction.
Thump. Thump.
Those spells, too, were all blocked by the barrier surrounding us.
It was a barrier weakened beyond measure by the magic monsters’ continuous attacks, but it could still block one or two spells easily enough.
We broke through the interference of the magic monsters and arrived before the ruin.
I didn’t know if it was because it was the same type of barrier, or because the tree had allowed it as Hanna said, but the barrier surrounding the ruin did not stop us.
Unlike the monsters, we passed smoothly through the barrier.
After passing through the barrier, the ruin I saw as we flew was made up of the tree at its center and a building surrounding that tree.
Even the tense team members looked around the ruin with wonder, and Hanna, too, looked up at the tree while stroking her bow.
Unlike the others, I was looking at our destination.
In the open space at the center of the building, before the gigantic tree, there were several altars.
Empty altars covered in dust.
However, an object rested on one altar.
No, it was difficult to say it rested there.
Because that object was floating above the altar.
It was a staff.
A long, elegant staff made from the same wood as Hanna’s bow, the same wood as the gigantic tree before my eyes.
While I was looking at the staff, the towing magic set us down on the floor.
We had arrived at the center of the hollow building, before the gigantic tree.
Before us was the altar we had seen from the sky, and above that altar floated the staff.
Just looking at the staff, I could feel an intense energy from it.
Seeing the staff, Soph let out a brief exclamation of admiration.
[Ah. That is…]
It sounded like he had remembered something.
As I heard that exclamation, I saw the world become submerged in brilliant light.
Fwooooosh!
I had entered Soph’s memories once again.
Prophet (3)