Revisit

I flopped onto my bed as soon as I got home.

It felt like all the strength had drained out of me.

No, more precisely, I'd had strength until just a moment ago, and then it vanished.

A new kind of power that had existed inside me until just a moment ago—faint, but undeniably there.

"My faith...."

The tiny, speck-sized faith I had gained the moment I entered the 36th floor.

I had used up every last bit of that precious point.

The more I thought about it, the more my stomach burned.

Of course, thanks to that, I had actually managed to clear the floor.

But it was an absurdly inefficient way to do it.

To think I used the power of thousands of people just to take down a single trash mob?

The cost-performance ratio was atrocious.

"I need a fundamental solution."

I couldn't keep burning through faith that way forever.

It wasn't as if I'd always be lucky enough to have an environment where I could gather faith like this time.

Whether it was learning offensive magic or getting a related item.

I had to come up with a solid plan.

"If I searched carefully, I felt like I could probably find one or two usable items...."

Then something on the bedside table caught my eye.

[Previous Floor Re-entry Ticket]

[You can re-enter the previous floor.]

[Meet your rewards and bonds once more.]

[Tradable/One-time use]

An ambiguous reward, received instead of a skillbook.

I picked up the ticket and examined it closely.

"Maybe this could help...."

Where would be the most efficient place to use this?

If I used it, I could meet the NPCs inside or revisit a specific location.

Maybe I could find a clue that would solve my problem.

"Hmmm...."

I began seriously pondering where to use this precious ticket.

Three candidate locations floated up in my mind.

The first candidate was the 30th floor: the dwarves' massive foundry.

They were master craftsmen.

They might have special weapons or items capable of harming spirit bodies.

"Still, isn't that a little too valuable?"

If it was something they could make, I already had the blueprint for it too.

I'd still need to level up more, though.

It felt too wasteful to use a one-time ticket on them.

"Then there are the elves."

The second candidate was the purified World Tree where the elves lived on the 20th floor.

Elves.

A staple of fantasy worlds.

They're usually portrayed as a race deeply versed in magic.

If it was them, living together with the World Tree, there was a good chance they knew how to stand against spiritual beings.

"The last one is... that old man?"

The final candidate was the 5th floor.

The place where the magic-cutting old man lived.

He might know something about souls or ghosts.

No, he definitely would.

But I shook my head hard.

"...Absolutely not."

I recalled our first meeting.

I couldn't exactly call it a good one.

Of course, now that I had memory transmission magic, maybe we could understand each other to some extent.

But the problem was when we couldn't.

The old man was singularly deranged.

Besides, when he was middle-aged, hadn't he heard the old man's story and said, "It failed"?

If something unexpected happened, he was someone I wouldn't be able to handle.

"Using Belt's time magic might let me make an emergency escape, but...."

In that case, I'd be throwing away not only the one-time ticket but also time magic.

I'd be flinging two precious items into the void at once.

"Should I meet a different version?"

Then there was the middle-aged man on the 35th floor, and the young man on the 15th floor.

Either way, I'd definitely have at least one solid countermeasure.

Come to think of it, both of them had pretty decent personalities too.

"Then the question is which of the two I should meet...."

The answer came quickly.

Obviously, the 15th floor.

If the 35th-floor middle-aged man had anything to give me, he'd have given it all during our last meeting.

Besides, unlike the young man, I had nothing new to offer the magic-cutting middle-aged man.

"Alright, let's go to the 15th floor."

I steeled my resolve.

***

The next day, I tore the re-entry ticket without hesitation.

Sure enough, the system window popped up right away.

[You have used a Previous Floor Re-entry Ticket.]

[To which floor would you like to re-enter?]

"15th floor."

[Re-entering.]

[If you wish to exit, please press the button.]

[Would you like to exit? Y/N]

The ticket scattered into specks of light and enveloped my body.

The familiar sensation of spatial movement.

After closing and opening my eyes for a moment, a vast forest appeared.

The forest from my memory.

It was unmistakably the forest on the 15th floor.

"Oh... the air's different?"

I remembered fighting swamp slimes here.

A forest overflowing with corruption.

It was an area where it was hard to even breathe without the World Tree seed.

But now, there was no sign of that corruption at all.

"Did reviving the World Tree on the 20th floor affect this place too?"

But the floors are separated, aren't they?

How could they influence each other?

I left that question behind and moved forward.

What I was looking for was the giant tree where the magic-cutting young man lived.

I found the tree in no time.

Because there was a mound of sand piled all around it.

"This is still here?"

I remembered it clearly. This was definitely the trace left when I scattered a ton of sand as a precaution against the magic-cutting old man.

I approached the tree, feeling a slight tension.

The strange door was still attached to the tree.

I carefully knocked on the door.

"Hello... huh?"

Creeeeak.

My knock made the door swing open weakly.

It seemed it hadn't been locked.

"What? Nobody's here?"

The room was empty.

There was only a desk and a piece of paper.

There wasn't a single other object in the room.

A scene so barren it was hard to believe anyone lived here.

"Hmm...."

I stepped inside.

There was no sign of any magic trap going off or anything like that.

I couldn't sense any trace of magic here.

Hesitantly, I walked up to the desk.

"It doesn't seem like it's just an ordinary piece of paper...."

I picked up the paper sitting alone on the desk.

A completely ordinary-looking sheet of paper with nothing written on it.

But there was no way that was all it was.

That magic-cutting young man would never leave behind something meaningless.

First, I cranked up the power of my Insight Eye even further.

The flow of the world reflected in my eyes became even clearer.

But there wasn't the slightest trace of mana on the paper.

"Hmmm...."

If not magic, then some other method?

I remembered an article I'd seen on the internet as a kid about secret messages.

There were all kinds of bizarre methods.

For now, I decided to try the classic one first.

I took the paper and went outside the tree house.

I went to a spot in the blazing sunlight and held the paper up to it.

As expected, nothing showed up.

"There was also the trick of singeing it over a candle."

But I didn't have a candle with me now.

There was also the method of scratching it with a pencil, but of course I didn't have a pencil either.

I clicked my tongue and carefully folded the paper, then tucked it deep into my pocket.

It didn't look like there was anything I could do right now.

"Don't tell me this was a total bust?"

A sigh escaped me on its own.

I used such a precious ticket and all I got was a mysterious scrap of paper?

"Where on earth did that guy go?"

Feeling completely lost, I left the house and started walking aimlessly.

Was I just supposed to go back like this?

It would mean I wasted the ticket for nothing, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.

I was trudging along the forest path like that.

I suddenly lifted my head and froze in place.

"...Huh?"

I couldn't believe my eyes.

The sky visible through the leaves.

A giant tree came into view in that sky.

The World Tree was so huge it looked like part of the sky itself.

"Why is that visible from here?"

This was the 15th floor.

The World Tree had been planted on the 20th floor.

The floors were clearly separate, independent spaces.

Common sense said this was impossible.

But I remembered what Fridge had said recently in the Mage Gallery.

Ever since I'd met the elves and dwarves on the 10th- and 20th-floor levels.

He'd said that they'd started appearing in towers being raided by other hunters too.

My actions were affecting not just the tower I was clearing, but other towers as well.

Then it wouldn't be strange if they affected the other floors of the tower I was in, either.

'Did purifying the World Tree on the 20th floor change the environment of the 15th floor too?'

No wonder the air had seemed so clean.

I walked toward the World Tree as if under a spell.

A thought suddenly crossed my mind.

"If the World Tree is affecting things this far, could the elves be here too?"

They were the beings who had appeared together with the World Tree on the 20th floor.

It wouldn't be strange if they were here wherever the World Tree was.

I remembered my original objective.

Finding a way to deal with ghostly spirit monsters.

The magic-cutting young man was gone, but maybe the elves knew the answer.

"Yeah, let's go."

A new hope emerged.

I began walking, using the giant World Tree towering into the sky as my landmark.

***

How long had I been walking?

At last, I could see the World Tree in the distance.

And the young elves frolicking around it.

It was a scene no different from the last time I'd seen it.

"Thank goodness."

This time, it wasn't a wasted trip either.

"Huh?"

"A black-haired elf!"

"Idiot, that's a human!"

An elf child who spotted me shouted.

All the gazes around me turned my way.

"Waaah!"

Before long, dozens of elf children cheered and rushed toward me.

I cried out in alarm.

"Stay away!"

It didn't help much.

In no time, I was surrounded by elf children.

"You're still wearing weird clothes."

"And your ears still haven't grown at all!"

"Damn it...."

They hadn't changed one bit.

Even the way they kept tugging at my hair and ears while playing was the same, and it made me dizzy.

Their overflowing energy was still too much to handle.

"That's right, I could just have them play with Chohogi."

I took out Chohogi, who had been sleeping soundly in my arms.

I sized it to match the elf kids, because if I left it at its original size, it might become a toy.

"Their intelligence levels seem about the same."

They'd definitely make good friends.

"...Sand human?"

"...!"

The elf kids and Chohogi stared at each other.

The elves, seeing a human made of sand for the first time, opened their eyes wide.

It was Chohogi's first time seeing so many living things of its own size.

It too tilted its head, as if finding it strange.

"...!"

For a brief moment, they were simply fascinated by each other.

Before long, they hit it off and started playing together.

Surrounded by the children, Chohogi became an instant star.

"They're getting along well."

I quietly slipped away while they were distracted.

I had to meet the only adult in this group.

I had to meet the only adult in this group.