Chapter 20
#20. Underground Dungeon
A ruin appeared alongside the sudden earthquake, and its appearance was reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple.
Moreover, although it must have been left beneath the lake for quite some time, its exterior was so pristine that one could have believed it had been built only recently.
Iris and I carefully stepped across the stone platforms toward the ruin.
The ruin we reached gave off an eerie atmosphere precisely because it was excessively well preserved, just as it had appeared from a distance.
“The World Tree’s temple...”
Iris murmured in a small voice as she gazed at the ruin.
“The World Tree?”
“Yes. I’ve only seen it in ancient murals, but from the architectural style to the golden trees symbolizing the World Tree carved throughout the outer walls and pillars, there’s no doubt. This is a temple built thousands of years ago to worship the World Tree.”
As Iris stroked the temple’s outer wall and looked around, she was, as expected, surveying her surroundings with the inquisitive eyes of a scholar.
‘Should I increase the output?’
Light, a basic spell learned by most mages, merely illuminates the surrounding area.
About the size of a small flashlight?
But if I tampered slightly with the part of the spell formula responsible for the intensity of the light source...
Fwoosh-
I could illuminate an entire temple.
It couldn’t last long—at most, an hour? Since I had modified the spell formula, its efficiency had dropped considerably, but aside from that, it had been fairly successful.
“Wow! Mr. Hyunwoo, that’s the modified spell I taught you last time, right?”
“It’s basic among basics, though.”
After patting Iris on the head, pleased with her student’s growth, we carefully stepped inside the temple.
Thanks to the enhanced Light spell, the temple’s interior was extremely bright.
‘Next time I come here, I should bring a decent mana generator and some lights.’
Until we escaped, I might as well live like a proper human being.
The temple’s interior was far more desolate than I had expected.
“Mr. Hyunwoo, there’s something over there.”
At the spot Iris was pointing toward stood a small altar and a withered tree.
There was only a little dust on the altar, and no offerings or anything else of note could be seen.
“Oh no...”
I heard the worry in Iris’s voice.
She stroked the tree behind the altar and wiped away her tears.
Whether it was because she was an elf, or simply because Iris was too kindhearted...
“It really is serious.”
The tree looked so lifeless that even one growing in a burned-out forest would have seemed healthier.
“If only I could summon a dryad...”
I comforted the downcast Iris and examined the tree a little more closely.
It was slightly larger than the trees used for landscaping around apartments or parking lots. Other than that, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about it.
‘...Something’s strange.’
Discomfort.
My instincts told me that this tree was the source of the discomfort that had been stabbing fiercely through my entire body ever since we entered the temple.
However, even when I carefully let mana flow into the tree, it showed no particular reaction.
‘No way.’
On the off chance, I turned my head.
“Iris, can you try infusing this tree with mana?”
“Huh? Mana...?”
“You never know, right? It’s a tree placed in the temple of the World Tree, the god of the elves. Maybe it’ll become healthy if it receives mana from the Elven Queen?”
“Hmm...”
It was only a vague guess, but it didn’t seem like anything bad would happen.
After a brief moment of thought, Iris placed her hand on the tree.
Her distinctive green mana began to shine, and that energy flowed entirely into the tree.
The tree seemed to glow for a moment, then quickly fell silent as though nothing had happened.
‘...Was that not it?’
Honestly, I had been wondering whether this temple, which had appeared so suddenly, might become the key to our escape.
‘Do we need to offer something at the altar?’
Since it was the World Tree, should I bring fertilizer or some kind of tree nutrient from Earth?
“M-Mr. Hyunwoo!”
“?”
When I turned toward the urgent voice calling me, something strange was happening to the withered tree.
The tree that had clearly been dying was brimming with vitality. It was so lush with fresh leaves that it glowed gold.
It was nothing less than the Golden Tree’s return.
“That’s fucking effective.”
But the changes did not end there.
The tree, which had regained its vitality in an instant, extended its branches throughout the temple. A golden light brighter than the light source of my Light spell gradually filled the temple’s interior.
The tree had grown at least three times larger than when I first saw it.
“Iris, you could get a job as a gardener.”
“Huh? N-no! My mana doesn’t have any effect that makes trees grow!”
“Then what’s that?”
“I wonder...?”
As the tree continued growing and the temple’s interior began to transform into something like a botanical garden, I started wondering whether I had touched something I shouldn’t have.
But.
[My child.]
“?!”
“Eek?!”
The voice struck directly into our minds without passing through our eardrums, and all such worries vanished in an instant.
I reflexively looked around, but there was no one here except Iris and me.
“No way.”
“W-World Tree...??”
As if answering her, the golden tree emitted another burst of light.
[My child.]
“M-Mother...”
Iris shed heavy tears and approached the golden tree as if entranced.
At the sight, I grabbed Iris.
“Mr. Hyunwoo...?”
“Wait.”
I drew mana up from my Circle.
If that tree really was the World Tree, there was something I had to ask.
“If you really are the World Tree, there’s something I need to ask you.”
Unrefined anger rose up my throat and spilled out in the form of words.
“Why did you lock her up? Why did you depose her? You appointed her, so did you think you could just drag her back down whenever you felt like it?”
It had been no less than two hundred years.
To make two hundred years, I would have to repeat the life I had lived so far ten times.
For all that time, Iris had been alone in this cavern where there was no one, only darkness and dampness.
“Explain yourself properly before I burn you to ashes.”
Even so, Iris showed no sign of resenting the World Tree.
Why?
Because that was religion—the attitude of a believer toward the god they followed.
Of course, if meeting the World Tree made Iris happy, I was fine with it.
But I knew.
Given her personality, no matter how much resentment she held inside, she would never be able to utter even a single harsh word toward the World Tree and would simply keep it bottled up. That was why I had to step in.
How much must Iris have wanted to ask why she had been abandoned over the past two hundred years?
[...]
“What kind of fucking god sees a believer and, instead of apologizing, tries to get away with it by leeching off her feelings?”
“M-Mr. Hyunwoo...!”
A huge fireball rose above my palm.
“If you’re really a proper god, then you owe the believer who had to endure two hundred years alone in this shitty place because of you the utmost sincerity, an apology, and an explanation. You’d better give her everything you can.”
Otherwise, I would burn every last root of that tree.
Iris couldn’t say a word at the sight of a Kang Hyunwoo she had never seen before.
She could understand his feelings, but to Iris, who possessed boundless love for her god, his words were far too extreme.
Even so, Iris did not resent or feel disappointed in Kang Hyunwoo.
Because even the slightest fragment of his fierce anger was for her sake.
[My child.]
The World Tree broke the heavy silence and spoke.
[As he says, I owe you an apology.]
“M-Mother... You don’t have to say that...”
[Even if I had my reasons, the pain you suffered will not disappear. I have no way to make up for the suffering you endured over the past two hundred years now, but I swear that I will repay you someday.]
The branches reached toward Iris like human arms and pulled her into a tight embrace.
[I’m sorry, and I love you.]
At those few words, Iris remained in the World Tree’s embrace and quietly wiped away her tears without saying anything.
***
In the holy land of the elven kingdom of Pelledia, the World Tree’s symbolic vessel is enshrined.
A symbolic vessel refers to a living creature or object that, after serving as the object of believers’ faith for a very long time, transforms into something that symbolizes the god itself.
And the World Tree’s symbolic vessel was a massive tree that had lived for ten thousand years in the great forest enshrined in the holy land.
[Two hundred years ago, I lost the connection pathway to my symbolic vessel.]
“Lost it?”
[Unfortunately, I do not know the details either. I merely wasted the past two hundred years with my connection to the surface severed.]
Iris and I thought of the same thing after hearing the World Tree’s explanation.
“Then... Iris’s deposition wasn’t something you had a hand in?”
[Of course not. There is no child in present-day Pelledia more suited to the throne than this one. I suspect it was the work of those who tampered with the connection pathway between me and my symbolic vessel.]
‘...That’s a relief.’
I had half expected it ever since the World Tree began speaking to us, but hearing it from the World Tree itself still made a great difference.
Iris had gained certainty that she had not been abandoned by the god she loved most—the one she regarded as her mother.
“Sob, sniff...”
At the sight of Iris quietly wiping away her tears, my anger toward the culprits continued to build.
Revenge belonged to Iris, but if she forgave them...
“Then I’ll intervene.”
“By the way, is it actually possible to sever the connection between a god and its symbolic vessel...?”
Even though I had learned that the World Tree had not been involved in Iris’s deposition and imprisonment, it felt wrong to keep speaking so informally.
In any case, even breaking the barrier of the cavern maintained by the World Tree’s mana required a holy relic.
Could a mere elf sever the connection to something even greater—the symbolic vessel of a god?
Of course, that wasn’t a statement of racial discrimination. Iris was an elf too.
But the scale of such an undertaking seemed far too great for something as minor as a kingdom’s chancellor to carry out.
[It is true that there is no precedent, but I cannot say it was impossible. There must have been the intervention of another divinity.]
“Do you perhaps know which divinity intervened?”
So I could find and kill them later.
I didn’t know whether it was possible to kill a god, but perhaps I could manage it by destroying every temple belonging to every one of them in this world and killing their believers.
There was a reason people said that a forgotten god was a dead god.
[...Unfortunately, I do not know at present.]
Was it my imagination, or could I sense resentment in the World Tree’s previously emotionless voice?
[Since no children other than those of the royal family can hear my voice, investigating the incident was impossible. This cavern is even the only place in the great forest where my voice cannot reach a royal child.]
“Wait...? Then did Resilia know that and lock Iris in here?”
[Given the circumstances, that is the reasonable conclusion.]
I felt as though the outline of the incident was gradually coming into view.
Not content with usurping the throne by joining hands with another divinity, an elf who worshiped the World Tree as her race’s sole god had even committed some kind of atrocity against the god’s symbolic vessel and severed its connection to the god.
And she had known about the special nature of this cavern, something even Iris, a member of the royal family, was unaware of?
‘...When we get outside, will a country called Pelledia even still exist?’
[You need not worry about that.]
‘? You read my thoughts... Ah, right.’
Could a god not even do that?
I quickly accepted the explanation.
[Originally, gods and believers are always connected. Prayer offered by believers to their gods is bidirectional, after all. The elves’ emotional state does not appear to be significantly different from before, so the kingdom’s affairs are likely not in much disorder.]
It was fortunate, all things considered.
It would be a little disconcerting if we got out of here only to find a wasteland.
[My child, I’m sorry it took so long.]
“No... Mother, it was something you didn’t want either. I’m so happy just knowing that...”
Afterward, Iris spent a long time talking with the World Tree, almost like a child seeking affection from a parent.
While she did so, I entered meditation to examine the Second Circle I had reached not long ago in greater detail.
How much time passed like that?
[Kang Hyunwoo.]
I opened my eyes at the World Tree’s call.
[It seems you wish to help this child escape from here.]
“Yes. Now that we’re discussing it, could you get us out of here?”
[That will be difficult. In my current state, I cannot interfere with the surface. The existence of this temple and my fragment allow me to converse with you like this, but I cannot accomplish anything beyond that.]
I had wondered whether things would proceed smoothly for once, but that sort of thing was never in the cards for me.
I hadn’t expected it anyway.
For some reason, I had a feeling it would turn out this way.
[There is, however, a way to leave this place.]
When the World Tree’s branch pointed toward the altar, the altar began moving to the side with a rumbling vibration.
[A dungeon exists even deeper underground in this cavern.]
Where the altar had disappeared, a circular staircase leading underground appeared.
[Bring me the holy relic sealed at the lowest level of the dungeon. With that alone, you will not only be able to escape this place, it will also help you with the trials that lie ahead.]