Chapter 4
#04. Matching (4)
Lesilia, who had hurled a poisonous barb at the queen she had once served, turned toward the subjects staring intently at her.
"People of Pheldia, the World Tree has ordered the deposition of the current queen, Iris Lumeria Baiart Pheldia.“
“?!
Though they had expected Lesilia to have ulterior motives after taking a position tantamount to treason, the nobles were all left speechless by her utterly blatant declaration.
Of course, only one Elder and the nobles were left speechless.
"First Elder of the Council of Elders, Vigris Harun Harts. I shall obey the World Tree's command."
The wrinkled First Elder uttered a shocking declaration.
'What did that crazy old geezer just say...?!'
'Wasn't he uninterested in power?!'
'...This is dangerous.'
'If that man, the First Elder, is of that opinion...'
The unease of the high-ranking nobles soon became reality.
"Second Elder of the Council of Elders, Alanya Raymond Provina. I shall obey the World Tree's command."
"Fourth Elder of the Council of Elders, Amal Florence Khashka. As commanded by the noble and mighty World Tree."
"Seventh Elder of the Council of Elders, Reiken van Fitel. I shall obey the command."
Every Elder other than the few who were absent and the Sixth Elder, who had shouted at Lesilia for slandering the queen, agreed to the deposition of the current queen.
"W-what kind of behavior is this!!"
The Sixth Elder shouted at the other Elders in the Council, his face showing that he simply could not believe it, but the Elders did not react.
"Your Majesty? No, Iris?"
"Lesilia!!“
In the end, Iris, having lost the last of her reason, reached out toward Lesilia, but an unidentified figure dressed in black who appeared from somewhere stopped her.
This was the fourth Master-level powerhouse to appear.
Even Iris, an Eighth Circle Archmage, had no chance against a Master-level knight once she had let the figure approach.
Besides, no matter how completely she had lost her reason, she could not commit the atrocity of using magic in the sacred grounds.
"Hmm? Since when has Her Majesty's hand been so weak? Ah, you're the former queen now, aren't you?"
"What on earth...! What on earth have you done to the World Tree?!”
"How unfortunate..."
A clear sneer was unmistakable in Lesilia's expression as she looked at Iris with what seemed like genuine pity.
"People of Pheldia! As commanded by the World Tree, I hereby proclaim that I, Lesilia Lunbanien Parun Pheldia, have ascended to the throne as Pheldia's fifth monarch!“
Though they were seeing and hearing it, the people's minds simply could not process the succession of utterly incomprehensible statements and events.
The former queen, revered as a wise ruler, had been rejected by the World Tree, and a woman who had appeared as the prime minister had slandered Her Majesty before committing the outrage of laying hands on the World Tree itself. She was a traitor guilty of high treason who deserved to have her entire clan exterminated.
And now that criminal was the new queen?
The people could not easily escape their confusion after one catastrophe followed another.
But that lasted only a moment.
"L-long live the new queen!"
"L-long live Queen Lesilia!"
"Long live the World Tree!"
"May glory come to Pheldia!!"
"Long live! Long live!!"
To elves, the choice and will of the World Tree, their sole god and mother, were more than enough to win over the crowd.
No matter how benevolent a ruler Iris had been, believers were bound to offer their god absolute faith and loyalty.
After that, matters proceeded at a whirlwind pace, and Iris was sentenced to eternal imprisonment in an underground cavern while wearing a powerful sealing artifact that suppressed her mana.
She would never be able to leave the prison unless she took her own life or died for some other reason.
Iris, who had suddenly become a high traitor and been imprisoned, asked again and again in a daze.
Why on earth had this happened?
Why on earth had Lesilia done this?
‘Why...?’
Thud-
No one appeared to answer her questions until the very moment the prison door closed, and just like that, two hundred years passed.
***
Whether because of the app's influence or not, Iris calmly recounted an account that was difficult even to listen to.
‘...Two hundred years.’
Just thinking about it made my breath catch.
It was a span of time so long that a mere human who had lived only twenty-one years could not even begin to comprehend it.
There was no way to put into words what she must have felt after spending all those years here alone.
Once Iris had finished revealing her entire past, the look in her eyes returned to normal.
"Don't you want revenge?“
I tried not to show it as much as possible, but the words slipped out before I could stop myself.
"Revenge..."
Iris looked as though she had detached herself from the world.
"Who could I blame now? Seeing through the true nature of others is also a ruler's virtue... I was simply a poor judge of character."
Iris seemed calm as she blamed herself, but she also looked sad in some way.
"You don't want to stay here forever either, do you?"
"That's true, but..."
"Then it's settled."
As far as I was concerned, the most satisfying outcome would be for Iris to take revenge on that woman named Lesilia, but I had no intention of forcing it on someone who did not want it.
Whatever the matter, the wishes of the person involved came first.
"Revenge or whatever, let's get out of here first, okay? Surely that's all right.“
Besides, it was wrong for an innocent person to rot in prison for the rest of her life. For now, that was all I needed to think about.
Iris was far too pitiful to spend her entire life trapped in a dark, damp place like this.
"F-from here...?"
Iris's voice sank heavily.
"Thank you for saying that... but it's impossible.“
Where she pointed stood a gigantic door. It looked to be roughly the height of a five- or six-story apartment building.
”The only exit is blocked by the World Tree's barrier, and because of the sealing artifact, I can barely use my mana."
She had not simply sat idle for the past two hundred years.
Even with her mana restricted by the sealing artifact, she had tried to somehow undo the barrier, but at this rate, the calculations showed that merely deciphering it would take approximately 1,200 years.
Of course, the very idea of a mortal deciphering a god's barrier was absurd, but even if she finished deciphering it, disabling the barrier in her current condition was an entirely separate problem.
"Well, things are different now from back then."
"Pardon? How are they different?"
"I'm here now, aren't I?“
Could there really be no way to escape without undoing the barrier?
I didn't think so.
Even department stores sold escape artifacts made for ordinary people in case they became trapped inside a gate.
Of course, the problem was that they were so expensive they made you gasp, but if Iris gave me permission to dig up a few of the World Tree's roots scattered around here, I thought I could buy one soon enough.
But there was one fact Kang Hyunwoo had overlooked.
Although Earth, where monsters had existed since the dawn of human history, was overflowing with all kinds of artifacts and magical tools, nothing was known about the existence of gods.
Transcendent beings were occasionally depicted in ancient historical records, but experts still debated whether they were gods or merely super-powerful beings like S-rank hunters.
As a result, Kang Hyunwoo had no idea what kind of being the World Tree—a god actually existing in the present age—was.
That was the sort of mistake a shallow imagination made.
He was not even considering whether a human-developed artifact could pierce a god's barrier.
Kang Hyunwoo would only learn this a little later.
"I came from another world called Earth.“
"Yes...? Another world??"
I explained to Iris in as much detail as possible how I had ended up here.
Except I left out anything about the dating app.
I hadn't used it to meet a woman, but my pride still would not allow me to say that a grown man had been dragged away after using a dating app.
Of course, there was no way Iris knew what a dating app was, but a situation might arise later in which I had to explain it.
At first, I had no idea how to explain something called a cellphone, but the development of magical tools in this world seemed to be far more impressive than I had expected.
"...So you traveled across dimensions to our world using this cellphone, a communication terminal from your world, is that right?"
"Yes."
She seemed to understand what a cellphone was after only a little explanation.
It was rather impressive that she could grasp the important points despite my poor ability to explain things to others. However, her reaction to dimensional travel was more subdued than I had expected.
‘Was it because it was too far-fetched?’
Instead, she seemed more interested in the cellphone. Even without expressing it in words, some things could be understood just by watching her.
”Would you like to try using it?“
”Is that okay...?"
"Of course."
"Th-thank you..."
I handed the cellphone to Iris, who had been gazing at it as if entranced.
As she happily fiddled with the cellphone, I explained various things about it and satisfied her curiosity.
When she tried to connect to the internet midway and looked disappointed after I told her that it would not work here, she was so cute that I wanted to take a picture and preserve the moment.
An elf's reactions while using an Oseong smartphone—if I uploaded that to NewTube, five million views in a single day would be the bare minimum, wouldn't they?
'Come to think of it, does only I see the 'Otherworld Dating App'?'
Just in case, I tried to show Iris the Otherworld Dating App, but it seemed that she could not see anything at all.
Apparently, this app did not match me with women from other worlds; it sent me to wherever there was a woman who met the conditions I wanted.
‘If I try matching a few more times, I think I could be sure.‘
That wasn't likely to happen anytime soon.
"Um... Mr. Hyunwoo..."
"Yes? Why are you calling me..."
I turned my head without thinking, and the sight of the screen Iris showed me hit me like a blow to the back of the head.
An all-too-familiar photograph was displayed on the screen.
It was a photograph of an AV actress baring her enormous breasts without even a single mosaic censor.
Why was Iris showing me the porn I'd had such a hard time obtaining recently?
‘...Ah, I never told her not to go into the gallery?'
Though it was a relatively recent photo, I had saved other pictures after it as well, so if she was showing me that one, it meant she had already seen pictures that were more explicit and even more tailored to my tastes.
"D-do you like things like this...?"
”...“
Kang Hyunwoo could not say a word.
It felt as though I had gone on a blind date and shown my partner the porn and erotic pictures that matched my personal tastes. Of course, I had never actually been on a blind date.
-Hey, just kill yourself.
I could even hear a hallucination, as if my instincts were speaking to me.
"I-if you don't mind...!!"
Just when I was thinking that it might be better to dunk my face in a dish of water and die, I heard Iris's pitifully trembling voice.
Iris approached me with her face bright red, as though it might burst, and clasped my hand tightly.
"Would you like to touch my breasts instead...?"