◈ Episode 251. If Brotherly Love Is Needed, a Hidden Piece.
Even back when Arcana was still a game, rumors had run rampant. Even though no one was sure they even existed, there were people who chose the explorer class for the sole purpose of finding Hidden Pieces.
The reason was simple.
Hidden Piece.
The name alone sounded like it would come with some incredible reward, didn’t it?
But after the Cataclysm.
After the AAU shared information about Arcana with the players.
Hidden Pieces became a ridiculous joke.
-Why bother looking for something when the reward wasn’t even implemented lol
-Fr, they weren’t even made to be found in the first place
-Even if you found one, it’d probably be a letdown lol
Before the Cataclysm.
Hidden Pieces weren’t content meant to appear at the time.
Simply put, they were unimplemented content meant to be used later.
Because of that, even the AAU didn’t know about their rewards or whether they existed at all.
‘Of course they didn’t.’
I had suffered through more hardships than other players ahead of them…
No, skipping the intermediate steps, I had gone through major experiences.
And yet even I had discovered a Hidden Piece for the first time only now.
[Hidden Piece, Snow Mountain of the Ice Dragon]
[Hidden Piece, Temple of the Dragon]
In truth, just looking at the names attached to them made it easy to accept.
Hidden Piece—one phrase that truly lived up to its name.
First of all, the difficulty of entering them was beyond imagination, wasn’t it?
‘Even the Snow Mountain of the Ice Dragon.’
It had the condition that one had to meet the Ice Dragon, Prosnax, in the Rift of Dimensions. Well, the Temple of the Dragon must be even worse. If you weren’t a dragon, you couldn’t even approach that place.
‘I hate to admit it, but…’
……
I was an exception because I was the Black Dragon of Darkness.
In any case, a Hidden Piece was a place that grand. And yet, the modifier Hidden Piece had been attached to the Yusra Kingdom’s vegetable garden, which at most only grew elixir herbs…!
There was only one possibility I could think of.
During the fifteen days I was gone.
Something must have happened to the vegetable garden.
Elsidore.
The activation of the hierarchy of blessing.
“!”
Just from the expression on Elsidore’s face as he took a step back because of it, I could tell.
At a glance, he clearly had something to feel guilty about.
If I followed my heart, I wanted to grab Elsidore and ask him outright.
Since there was the hierarchy anyway.
Even if he had something he wanted to hide from me, he wouldn’t be able to hide it.
But who was Granfell?
A possessor of excessively noble pride.
Due to unavoidable circumstances.
The fact that he had been unable to visit the garden for fifteen days.
He was the owner of a troublesome personality that considered even that a weight he had to bear.
‘There’s no way I can interrogate Elsidore.’
So I had no choice but to see and judge with my own eyes.
First, what Elsidore had been standing in front of and blocking was the elixir herb.
But, wait a second…
Why did even its appearance seem unusual?
Its petals were excessively broad and in full bloom.
And more than anything, there was the large fruit that stood out.
I spoke calmly.
“Is it because the harvest season has passed?”
It was something I said without any particular meaning.
“Huk……”
I heard Elsidore flinch.
What’s with the overreaction?
Anyone watching would think I was really working him like a slave.
If you got down to it, missing the harvest season was because I hadn’t been able to visit the garden.
There was no way the great Granfell would blame someone else.
I wanted to tell him, generously, that there was nothing to worry about.
But I couldn’t.
“It has grown truly bizarrely.”
That was right.
Because the fruit before my eyes was truly “bizarre.”
So much so that even I couldn’t identify it.
The Demon King’s trophy, [Pentagram of Pure Knowledge].
Thanks to its effect, I understood information about every plant and mineral that existed in Arcana. But even within that knowledge, there was no information about this fruit.
What that meant was simple.
That fruit was not only “bizarre” in appearance.
It was literally an [『Anomaly』]
.
Once I thought of it that way……?
I could understand why such a grand modifier as Hidden Piece had been attached to the elixir herb garden. If it was a vegetable garden where an anomaly had grown, perhaps it had earned the right to be called a Hidden Piece.
‘So the important thing is.’
How.
How had an anomalous fruit grown in the vegetable garden?
While examining the fruit, I asked Elsidore.
“Was there anyone who visited the garden other than you?”
“……
No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I did not leave my post for even a moment.”
Well, was it a question I didn’t even need to ask?
Elsidore’s temperament.
From his very first appearance, it had been widely known to the world.
Right now, he just couldn’t say anything because of the hierarchy.
Humans, of course, and everything other than himself—he looked down on them all.
I didn’t even expect that temperament to have been corrected.
‘With that Elsidore standing there with his eyes wide open.’
Who would have dared visit the vegetable garden?
Then, as expected, there was only one possibility.
Just as Elsidore himself had said.
Because he had tended the elixir herb without leaving his post for even a moment.
The elixir herb had grown in an [『Anomalous』]
way.
Anomaly.
Two completely different concepts combining with each other.
In addition to the properties of the elixir herb.
I didn’t know what kind of influence Elsidore had exerted.
Nor how it had become an anomaly.
But one thing was certain.
For now, I couldn’t know its effect just by looking.
In order to learn its effect…….
‘I’ll have to eat it.’
Of course, I wasn’t crazy enough to think of swallowing the fruit in reality.
Even when I had consumed an elixir whose effect I knew.
I had dropped my teacup and fainted from the backlash……!
‘I mean on the Arcana Continent.’
Well, it would hurt.
But there, even if I died, I wouldn’t die.
In any case, well done, Elsidore.
Thanks to you, I obtained a fruit that, though I don’t know what it is, is anything but ordinary.
I opened my mouth.
“Your pride has borne fruit.”
Pride has borne fruit, what an expression……
Even as the one saying it, it was a Granfell-style manner of speaking that was hard to understand.
But somehow or other, the meaning seemed to get across.
“Is that so. Haha……”
Because Elsidore’s face suddenly brightened.
Had Elsidore, at some point, become sincere about growing elixir herbs too?
Was farming something suited to an elf’s aptitude?
It was at that moment, while I was thinking.
Ah, I almost forgot.
‘Come to think of it, there was something I had to ask.’
─Enter Sisley, the land of the elves. (In Progress)
A class quest after a long time.
The World Tree, the Fruit of Good and Evil.
And what had happened between them and the demons?
To pursue that clue, I had to enter Sisley…….
“!”
No, wait.
For an instant, as if I had been electrocuted.
I felt a jolt.
The Fruit of Good and Evil.
The fruit before my eyes.
Sisley, the elves’ homeland.
The Garden of Elegance, where the elf Elsidore permanently resided.
The Fruit of Good and Evil, where completely different good and evil coexisted.
The fruit containing an anomaly, two completely different properties.
……
This wasn’t a similarity to be taken lightly, was it?
*
The Golden Palace.
However, it was not the annex where he stayed.
At this moment, Elsidore felt extreme anxiety.
‘What is this?’
How could he not?
-“Your pride has borne fruit.”
Leaving aside the process, in the end he had definitely heard those words.
So he had been relieved.
He hadn’t expected to receive his mother’s blessing back already.
But he had avoided being reprimanded for neglecting the management of the garden.
Yet what sort of sudden thunderbolt was this?
“Follow me.”
Click—
Before he knew it, he was trailing after Hoyeol.
Elsidore looked back over his actions.
No matter how he thought about it, the actions that might have displeased him were…….
‘……
Could it be?’
Had he been found out after all?
Starting from the fact that he had tried to pull it up by the roots?
If he considered it that way, there were more than enough things to feel guilty about.
Even the moment when he had tried to cover the flowers and fruit with his body, only to be scolded and forced to step aside…… Because of that, Elsidore had no choice but to enter Hoyeol’s office hesitantly.
Thud—
‘Ugh.’
The moment the door closed.
A dreadful memory suddenly came back to him.
That time when, because of the hierarchy, he hadn’t been able to say anything to Hoyeol and had obediently answered. Perhaps because he had experience with it, Elsidore did not bother with useless tricks.
‘There’s no point resisting.’
If he had been able to defy the hierarchy in the first place.
He wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.
So he voluntarily opened his mouth first.
“I will answer whatever you ask without resistance.”
Then a calm reply came back.
“In that case, this will be quick.”
Elsidore bit his lip.
‘Do I truly have to say everything……!’
The fifteen days Hoyeol had been away.
Elsidore looked back over his mistakes.
As expected, what bothered him most was the soliloquy he had muttered without pause.
-“Look. Is the water I give you not better?”
-“Haha, at this rate, one cannot tell who the master of the garden is.”
-“This is elegance, and this is the Garden of Elegance.”
……
All of that?
For a moment, Elsidore fell into anguish.
To that Elsidore, Hoyeol continued.
It was a question he had not expected in the slightest.
“Elsidore.”
“……
I am listening.”
“How did you live in Sisley.”
……
Sisley?
He had not imagined it at all.
That Hoyeol would suddenly ask about the past.
Had he not intended to interrogate him?
It was the moment Elsidore remained suspicious until the very end.
A merciful suggestion followed.
“It would be best to sit down and talk.”
“……!”
“Because the story may become long.”
Truly.
Was he curious.
About how I had lived?
“…….”
It was a question he had heard for the first time since he was born.
Moreover, it was not the question he had worried about.
So Elsidore was able to answer as if it were nothing.
Because, in truth, there had been nothing particularly unusual about his daily life in Sisley.
“My kin and I communed with nature in Sisley and enjoyed eternity. If I had to compare it…… it was a life similar to now. Of course, in Sisley, everything grew on its own without any effort from us. There was no need for such troublesome labor as there is now.”
“Did that include the World Tree as well?”
“Of course.”
More than being obvious.
Protecting the World Tree had been their mission.
Naturally, their mother had also been included among the targets of their communion.
“……
May I drink?”
“Of course.”
“……
Thank you.”
Elsidore lifted the teacup Hoyeol had given him and tilted it.
‘Green water?’
The bitter taste did not matter.
When telling stories of the past, even a little warmth was enough.
Elsidore had lacked nothing at all.
As he continued speaking about life in Sisley.
Another question followed.
“Then the World Tree also must have been able to bear fruit.”
“It would have.”
“If it had your care, that is.”
As expected, he possessed an aesthetic eye unlike a human’s.
He recognizes our greatness at once.
At some point, Elsidore’s nose had risen in pride.
“Even if sowing the seeds is said to be the role of the lizards, if we do not tend to our mother, our mother cannot even bear fruit containing seeds. Therefore, the responsibility for the current situation lies not with us, but with the lizards.”
The ones who had offended them first were the dragons, the lizards.
That was why he and his kin had merely failed to fulfill their responsibility.
The fact that their mother had died without bearing proper fruit.
The fact that the dragons had sown the seeds without knowing that truth.
It meant none of it was their fault.
He was in the middle of thinking that.
Clack—
The sound of a teacup being set down was heard.
“So that was it.”
As always, a voice filled with conviction followed.
Just like before.
Once again, unexpected words followed.
“Everything was because the pride of siblings was lacking.”...
For now, one thing was certain.
Granfell, you really are addicted to green tea.
It must have been the caffeine in the green tea.
‘It feels like there’s nothing blocking my thoughts.’
Was that why?
The moment I heard Elsidore’s words, the tangled thread came loose.
It meant I realized where the misunderstanding had begun.
‘The dragons and the elves each had their own mission.’
If the dragons had the mission of sowing seeds.
Then the elves had the mission of making fruit that contained those seeds bear.
However, Elsidore had clearly said it.
That he and his kin had not fulfilled their duty.
If so, the fruit of the World Tree.
The Fruit of Good and Evil had never grown properly in the first place.
The dragons were the same.
The dragons’ duty was merely to sow the seeds.
It was not to sacrifice their own lives to make the seeds sprout.
It meant they had been toyed with by “someone” from the very beginning.
“Everything was because the pride of siblings was lacking.”
The pride of siblings.
If I interpreted Granfell-speak, it probably meant brotherly love.
If, just as the words meant, brotherly love had not been lacking.
If they had spoken to each other.
If they had resolved the misunderstanding.
If they had found the root cause of the incident.
The current situation would not have happened.
‘This is why a family has to be harmonious.’
There was no point regretting it.
Because the word regret did not exist in Granfell’s dictionary.
He simply advanced during the time others would spend regretting.
“However, that too is something that can be corrected.”
“……?”
In that sense.
I had gained one more thing to do in Sisley.
Not only carrying out the class quest.
“Through guidance education, that is.”
“?!”
Dragons and elves.
Even restoring the brotherly love between siblings.
How is it that this damn family……
Looks like the youngest will have to beat the drum and play the janggu all by himself!...
Tap-tap-tap.
Fingers dancing atop the keyboard.
A new post was refreshed on the community board.
[Title: But that thing called the Black Dragon of Darkness or whatever]
[Writer: ㅇㅇ]
[Content: Doesn’t that somehow seem like Hoyeol-nim……?]