Chapter 60
With anxiety weighing on him, time passed slowly.
And the World Tree’s energy was also slowly but steadily devouring Blanc.
As midnight drew closer, Blanc found it increasingly difficult to control his emotions.
Even after he burned incense to soothe his mind and calmed his stomach with warm tea, the prince’s tears would not stop, and his anger showed no sign of fading.
When Blanc threw the teacup he was holding for the third time because he could no longer control his anger, Fulcare finally took command of the Empire’s operations from him by force and confined him in the quietest place in Arba.
Blanc was left alone in a room whose four walls, ceiling, and floor were densely covered with magic circles drawn by Fulcare and Iseria.
No matter how loudly he shouted or raged, no one looked into the room.
After suffering for a long while, Blanc felt his head spin and collapsed onto the bed.
Once Blanc, too, had lost all vitality, the only living thing left in the room was the flickering candle.
Huddled tightly, Blanc stared blankly at nothing but the flickering candle’s shadow on the wall.
As he followed the wavering shadow, Blanc felt as though his consciousness were slipping away. Before long, his mind grew hazy, as if he had fallen under hypnosis,
‘Ah….’
Blanc suddenly recalled a memory he had forgotten.
The dagger, sharp like a rapier, had pierced between his ribs and stabbed his heart.
With the expression of an enraged beast, the Imperial Consort had left the room without hesitation, while seventeen-year-old Blanc, left alone, had shed tears nonstop and begged to be saved.
Yet no one had ever come to the shabby room where Blanc lay dying.
A window boarded up with wooden planks. A tightly shut door.
The only things visible were a candle emitting a faint light that looked ready to go out at any moment and his own shadow as he gasped for breath.
It was a memory exactly like his current situation.
The person who had saved Blanc then was his older brother, who had since passed away.
Gabin had brought Blanc to his palace and cared for him until he recovered his health.
To repay that kindness, Blanc had left for the Kingdom of Madak without hesitation.
Blanc raised his arm and placed it over his eyes.
“…Vieta.”
Imagining absurdly that Vieta might come to save him, just as Gabin had back then, Blanc softly murmured her name.
“Hm? Blanc, are you all right?”
Then, a reply came from the darkness where no one should have been.
Blanc’s eyes widened when he saw someone slowly walking out of the shadows.
It was Vieta.
*
“What on earth have you been doing while I was gone? Have you been eating properly?”
Vieta’s brow furrowed as she stared at Blanc.
She had rushed over as soon as she heard from Fulcare after leaving the subspace, but Blanc did not look very well.
“Uh, I look kind of stupid, huh?”
Blanc’s face flushed crimson as he awkwardly raised a hand and rubbed the back of his neck.
“Who knows?”
Vieta cocked her head and sat on the edge of the bed.
“When you’re in pain, you say you’re in pain, and when you’re having a hard time, you say you’re having a hard time. What’s so stupid about that? Anyway, shouldn’t you drink something? Your lips are all cracked. Ah, but before that, I should at least wipe you down.”
Blanc’s usually immaculate lips were badly chapped.
Vieta took out a handkerchief and looked around.
“What? There’s nothing here. Don’t tell me that bastard Fulcare locked you in here without even giving you water?”
“…There were circumstances.”
Seeing Vieta’s expression grow even more twisted, Blanc hurriedly took Fulcare’s side.
Because Fulcare had no idea what Blanc might do in his irrational state if he left so much as a liquor bottle or kettle behind, he had removed everything.
“Ha….”
Vieta irritably rubbed her forehead.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Blanc slowly nodded.
The warm, gentle scent had calmed the emotions that had been tossed about for so long.
“Thank you, Vieta.”
Blanc looked into Vieta’s eyes and conveyed his heartfelt gratitude.
“Mm, customer, you know you’re supposed to show your gratitude with money, right?”
Vieta grinned and formed a circle by touching her thumb and index finger together.
***
Hidden among the World Tree’s dense branches, Vieta watched the Arba Tree.
She was waiting for Laisen.
Fulcare argued that the enemies’ target would not be Elrod alone.
They would target Elrod to seize the position of chief, and they might attack the World Tree as well, reopening the wound of the past and completely severing ties with the Empire.
When Elrod and Iris heard that the World Tree might be in danger, they both vehemently objected,
“They openly launched a rebellion. What is there to hesitate about? They’re already mad dogs.”
Fulcare persuaded them in just two sentences.
“Their first attack will undoubtedly be on the Arba Tree. Only then can they divert the elves’ attention away from Laisen himself and create the reason he will be forced to act.”
Fulcare concentrated all the troops near the Arba Tree.
He intended to protect Elrod while leaving the World Tree’s defenses open, thereby luring the unwary Laisen to walk in of his own accord.
"Whew."
Midnight was almost here.
As she cleared her mind of the thoughts muddled by her argument with the goddess and calmly waited for the right moment,
Fsssh-.
The World Tree’s branches shook violently, and its leaves shrieked.
Soon afterward, just as Fulcare had predicted, flames shot up from the Arba Tree.
Beneath the pale violet sky, enormous flames swayed as though they would devour everything,
while acrid smoke stung the eyes and nose, and screams and the scraping of metal battered the ears.
Violent currents of air churned around the immense mana.
Everything made her blood boil, but like a panther of the night concealed in darkness, Vieta did not move.
Her prey had not yet revealed itself, so she could only endure and endure.
How much time had passed?
Laisen appeared before the World Tree, wearing a hood that was half-burned.
*
Somewhere, hell was unfolding, but around the World Tree, all was silent as the grave.
With everything proceeding according to his plan, Laisen could not hold back his laughter.
He had instructed the mages from Madak to disguise themselves as Imperials, while ordering his own subordinates to secretly attack Arba under the pretense of protecting Elrod and the elves.
He planned to use that opening to set the World Tree ablaze.
Since harming the World Tree was tantamount to betraying his entire people,
Laisen had hesitated at the Kingdom of Madak’s demand that he destroy it.
Yet the benefits he would gain by abandoning the World Tree vastly outweighed his kinship with the World Tree and the elves.
He would become chief, escape the bonds of his people, and even be able to steal other elves’ power and make it his own.
Besides, the World Tree had burned once before.
The tree had already fallen once, so destroying it again would not cause any major problems.
He could just grow it again.
When Laisen stretched his hand out to the side, a stalk of wood that had sprouted from the ground turned into a spear and latched onto his hand.
Vrrrrrr.
Perhaps sensing that he meant to harm its roots, the spear trembled violently.
He had to finish it in one blow.
The longer he dragged things out, the worse it would be.
The spearhead glowed red,
and Laisen swung the spear without hesitation toward the World Tree’s enormous trunk.
The shock wave from his swing became a tremendous gust that swept through the air, and the flame-wreathed spearhead drove fiercely into the World Tree’s trunk.
Clang!
But the strike that would make all his wishes come true was stopped by a tiny dagger.
“…Who are you?”
Laisen’s eyes narrowed at the unexpected interference.
Arba’s enormous flames faintly illuminated the figure of the enemy hiding in the darkness, despite the distance.
His enemy, kneeling on one knee, was a woman with short green hair and a truly tiny frame.
Laisen could not believe his eyes.
How could someone so insignificant have blocked his strike?
“Laisen?”
At the cold voice calling his name, Laisen involuntarily took a step backward.
At the same time, countless red threads fluttered into view.
"So it is you."
“No way?!”
Laisen knew this spell.
He had participated in the Demon Realm War, after all.
But there was no way this could be the hero.
After the Demon Realm War, the hero had lived a dissipated life, contracted an illness of unknown origin, and gone mad.
It was common knowledge—even to a passing five-year-old—that the mad hero Alicia had been confined on the outskirts of the Imperial capital.
“…Do you know the hero?”
The hero who could not possibly be the hero tilted her head.
“Ah, you don’t have to answer. I’ll find out everything later anyway.”
A strong wind grazed Laisen’s left cheek.
His arm fell away without resistance, and the foul scent of death wafted through the air.
“Damn it.”
Laisen spat out a harsh curse as tremendous pain overwhelmed him.
The battle was decided in just two exchanges.
A one-armed man could not possibly defeat a hero he could barely have beaten with both arms.
However, he had come too far to turn back.
If he lost here, it was obvious that he would be hunted down as an exile, belonging neither to the Kingdom of Madak nor to the World Tree.
Yet even when the sky falls, there is always a way out. Even if he lost to the hero, as long as he could somehow burn down the World Tree, he could rely on the Kingdom of Madak’s assistance and make plans for the future.
"I surrender."
As it happened, a magical artifact from the Kingdom of Madak lay inside his hood.