Chapter 79
79. Jade Elixir
Erwen started out by asking why I was asking such a thing, but soon cut straight to the chase and began telling me what she knew.
"The World Tree is a tree that holds nearly infinite mana, and the source of life for all elves."
Erwen's tone changed a little as she began talking about the World Tree. It felt like she was telling a fairy tale to a child.
"No one knows its exact origin, but according to an old legend, the World Tree was the first tree of life, born from Mother Earth herself."
"That is why the World Tree could possess nearly infinite mana and vitality—the blessing granted to the first life."
"The World Tree shared that life with the two elven races it had brought forth. The elves who received that near-infinite life became the immortal race."
For some reason, I felt like Erwen must have told this story many times before.
"Even now we live for a very long time, but back then, when the elves' lifeline was connected to the World Tree's soul, they truly lived forever."
A faint look passed through Erwen's eyes as she gazed into the distance. It seemed she was reminiscing about the distant past.
"But even if the soul is immortal, the body will eventually wear out. The World Tree solved that limitation in a very simple way."
"It would take back the soul of an elf who had grown old and died, give birth to a new body, and cycle it into that body."
"The consciousness and memories engraved into the soul were passed on intact even after being transferred to the new body, so the dead elf would simply become young again."
The soul of a dead elf obtained a new body and was born again—in other words, reincarnation.
"But perhaps because elves could reproduce and increase on their own, the World Tree eventually began to lose its power and wither."
I remembered what the World Tree had looked like on the 7th floor. Despite being shriveled, it still possessed tremendous power and presence.
It was hard to believe that was what it looked like when it was withered, but if Erwen was telling the truth, then I supposed it made sense.
That meant that one tree was bearing the burden of all those elves' lives.
"When the cycle that granted immortality was broken, elves could no longer obtain new bodies."
"Once the body aged, that was the end; our souls, too, would no longer return to the World Tree and would be scattered into the world."
"There were many elves who mourned that fact, but thousands of years passed, and they had long since returned to dust."
Didn't she say the withering of the World Tree happened before the Dark Elves left the Great Forest?
Now, apparently, only the Queen was left among the Dark Elves who remembered that era and the cycle of immortality.
Erwen herself wasn't exactly from that generation either, but was apparently somewhere in between.
"Well, I think the current form is right. Isn't it meaningful to pass on your will through death?"
"Really?"
"Of course. Isn't that how your human race is? You don't even live a hundred years, yet you continue to prosper and advance."
Erwen finished by saying that this growth and progress clearly came from the power of a will left behind at death.
Indeed, that does make sense.
The vow hammered into my chest by Mom's death is what moves this trash of a human.
**
I had learned various things about the World Tree, but I hadn't gotten anything particularly useful.
"That's about all I know. Were you satisfied?"
I wasn't satisfied. Honestly, her last words only made me feel worse for no reason.
But I couldn't show that, so I gave a perfunctory nod. Then Erwen added one more thing.
"I've just lived a little longer than most, so I don't know much. If you want to know more than that, it would be better to go see the Queen."
"That may be true, but the Queen isn't someone I can meet whenever I like, so I came to Erwen first."
"The current Queen is in rather poor health, but... since you're Eleanor's betrothed, you should be able to manage somehow."
"Is the betrothal still valid?"
"What, it's only been about twenty years since you last showed your face. That's a long time for humans, I suppose."
"So even if you promise to marry someone and then don't show your face for twenty years, the way they treat you doesn't change."
Elves' sense of time is hard to get a handle on to begin with, and jumping over such a long stretch only makes it more confusing.
And there was still one more reason why the Queen couldn't be met easily.
"But the Queen doesn't seem like she'd be friendly toward me."
The Queen still couldn't let go of the World Tree and had wanted to secure a peace treaty with the High Elves through an arranged marriage involving Eleanor.
But that accord had been shattered by my actions on the 7th floor, and now we were on the verge of war rather than peace.
In that situation, would the Queen look kindly on me, someone who was curious about the World Tree? Absolutely not, right?
"That does seem likely."
Erwen didn't seem to have thought of that. But then she clapped her hands, as if a good idea had just come to her, and spoke.
"Then how about bringing back an elixir that can cure the Queen's illness?"
And then a blue notification window appeared before my eyes.
[Epic : Dark Elf Chronicle - Jade Elixir]
Description : The reason the great Dark Elf Queen is bedridden remains unknown.
There wasn't any dramatic reason. She simply didn't want it known that she was bedridden.
She might have been suffering from some terrible illness and teetering on the brink of life and death, or she might just have caught a mild cold.
What is certain is that if you want to speak with the Queen, you'll need to show her the proper sincerity.
The elves are excellent at crafting medicine, so you know simply bringing ordinary medicine won't be enough, right?
Unless it's the Jade Elixir rumored by word of mouth, the Queen won't even give you the time of day.
[Quest Objective]
1. Obtain the Jade Elixir.
2. Prepare a tribute that surpasses the Jade Elixir (Optional).
3. Cure the Queen's illness (Optional).
I never expected to be dragged back into the faction quest line like this.
What's more, I know this quest. The details are different, but it's one of the key quests in the 8th-floor faction quest line.
The 8th-floor faction quest line is originally set up as a series of small subquests.
And now, all of a sudden, I've skipped most of the subquests and gone straight into the most important, highest-difficulty quest.
And as far as I know, this is one of those gimmicks that has to be handled as a party quest.
Damn it, what do I do?
**
The Jade Elixir quest is actually very easy to clear if you read the walkthrough.
Setting aside actually obtaining the elixir, this is a quest whose difficulty lies in figuring out where to get it.
If you follow the walkthrough, you can skip all the information gathering and go straight to obtaining the elixir, clearing it quickly.
The problem is the part where you actually obtain the elixir, and to get it you absolutely have to play in a party.
There isn't a system-based limit on party size, but there is a gimmick you absolutely can't clear alone.
What's more, whether the walkthrough posted on the community will work as-is is questionable. There are more than a few differences in the challenge conditions.
Even if I wanted to bring Rizmel or Eleanor, with the atmosphere this tense and on the verge of war, I can't easily spare any combatants.
Even Erwen, the blacksmith, seems to be very busy right now, and bringing noncombatants along is out of the question from the start.
"Okay, I'll go get it."
For now, I gave a short reply to signal that I was accepting the quest.
Either way, rejecting it wasn't an option from the beginning. There was no way I could skip an Epic quest.
Honestly, this is for the best. If a hard task gets thrown in front of me, the stray thoughts at least disappear for a while.
I opened the community and searched for the route to the place where the Jade Elixir could be obtained.
**
The place I had to go to obtain the Jade Elixir was, once again, a dungeon—though a somewhat special one.
It was a dungeon within a dungeon, accessible only by following a specific route inside the dungeon; in other words, a hidden dungeon.
[Old Altar - 3]
What I found was a place that looked similar to the cursed altar I had visited on the 7th floor to learn sensory enhancement.
There are a total of five such altars on the 8th floor, and only through this third altar can you enter the hidden dungeon.
I operated the statue placed on the altar exactly as described in the community walkthrough.
-Krrrreeeek!
With the sound of gears turning, the center of the altar opened and a boss sprang out.
[BOSS - Guardian of the Sealed Altar]
The boss was a golem with gears embedded all over it, and its stats were nothing special for a field boss.
Come to think of it, I've been running into golem-type enemies a lot lately.
Hup.
-BANG!
When I pulled a blunt weapon from my inventory and swung it, one of the golem's arms shattered and flew off.
This golem is the type that regenerates endlessly unless you destroy every gear embedded in its limbs.
In exchange, its base defense is extremely low for a golem-type boss—low enough to be shattered in a single blow.
-BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
I defeated the boss in exactly five hits, one for each gear embedded in its limbs and torso.
A field boss like this with no complicated patterns just feels like a slightly tougher trash mob now.
I wonder how many more floors do I have to climb before enemies start appearing that actually match my stats?
Unless I deliberately take the hard route, I probably won't be seeing many of those for a while.